According to The Tracking Board, Oscar-nominated director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Noah) is in talks to direct Channing Tatum in Sony Pictures’ Evel Knievel biopic.
Born Robert Craig Knievel, he attempted over 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980, and in 1974, a failed jump across Snake River Canyon in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket. The 433 broken bones he suffered during his career earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the survivor of “most bones broken in a lifetime.” He was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999. Knievel died of pulmonary disease in 2007 at the age of 69.
The screenplay chronicling the death-defying daredevil’s life was initially penned by Tatum’s producing partner Reid Carolin (Magic Mike, Magic Mike XXL) but is currently undergoing a rewrite by Scott Silver. Aronofsky nearly directed Silver’s script for The Fighter before David O. Russell took over, and Silver received a special thanks credit on Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.
As for Tatum, he had offered the director’s chair on his upcoming superhero movie Gambit to Aronofsky, who turned it down, but clearly the two sparked to each other and wanted to find another project together. Of course, Aronofsky has a history of being fickle with projects, abandoning films like The Wolverine, Watchmen and RoboCop after a prolonged development period, so who’s to say if his association with the Knievel movie will prove fruitful?
Columbia Pictures will distribute the untitled Evel Knievel biopic, though no release date is currently set.
