Friday Night Lights - New Film Directed by David Gordon Green

[Darth Marcus]

Source: Deadline

Universal Sets David Gordon Green To Quarterback ‘Friday Night Lights’ Film
by Mike Fleming Jr - May 9, 2018 10:30am

Stronger helmer David Gordon Green is negotiating to direct a new film for Universal Pictures based on Friday Night Lights, the Buzz Bissinger non-fiction book that captured the glory, heart, sweat, heartbreak and pressure that goes into small town America’s obsession with high school football each fall Friday night. Brian Grazer will produce for Imagine Entertainment, as he did on the original film.

The book was the basis for that terrific Peter Berg-directed 2004 Universal film that starred Billy Bob Thornton as coach of the Permian High Panthers, which spawned an arguably better Emmy-winning NBC series that ran from 2006-2011. That series starred Kyle Chandler as the head coach of the Dillon High Panthers from the fictional town of Dillon, Texas. Along with an avalanche of accolades, that series launched careers that include Michael B. Jordan, Taylor Kitsch, Connie Britton, Jesse Plemons and numerous others.

These are lofty standards for Green to live up to, but no different than what high school teams with feverish fan bases in states like Texas do each season as kids graduate and rosters turn over.

Executive Vice President of Production Jon Mone and Creative Executive Lexi Barta will oversee production for Universal.

Green is represented by CAA.

[Monterey Jack]

Huh? Connie Britton had been acting for over ten years before Friday Night Lights, so I don't see how that show "launched" her career.

[imsounoriginal]

"Launched" because it made her someone people actually paid attention to.

Movies are being remade way too quickly these days...

[CelluloidPal]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Huh? Connie Britton had been acting for over ten years before Friday Night Lights, so I don't see how that show "launched" her career.

It got her widely known after that show. Tommy Lee Jones has been acting for years but got widely known after his role in The Fugitive.

As for this movie, why? We got a great film and a great TV show. What can you possibly add to that?

[xbs2034]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Huh? Connie Britton had been acting for over ten years before Friday Night Lights, so I don't see how that show "launched" her career.

And of course she was in the movie, in essentially the same role.

[eightslicesofpie]

Yeah with one movie and an entire TV show already spawned from this book I don't know what value yet another movie is going to have, especially so soon, despite my fandom for David Gordon Green

[Leonidas King]

But why? The 2004 version is excellent as it is.

[fatediesel]

It's already been an excellent movie and an amazing show. Even if the new movie is good it will still struggle to live up to either of the prior adaptations.

[Hoke Moseley]

It would be totally pointless if the TV show never existed... but when both the movie and a 5 season TV show covered the same ground in the last 15 years... what in the hell is the point?

I'm a fan of DGG but hope this never comes to fruition.

[deadwalker]

I Would rather see the TV show cast pick up years later into a feature film. Coach taylor could return to Dillon, maybe Tim Riggins wound up as coach, etc....

[DrWally]

There is a whole different seam of material that could be mined from Buzz Bissinger's book than either the movie or the TV series managed (or chose not) to do.

The book is only tangentially about the Permian Panthers football team, and really uses it as a framing device for a story that's more about poverty in the USA, racial divides, and the fall in American educational standards. One bathetic section describes how a set of students were once shown a VHS screening of Burch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid in lieu of an actual history class.

This territory is similar to David Gordon Green's early work like George Washington, and I can see why he'd be drawn to it.