You knew that the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State was an eventual movie waiting to happen and HBO got itself a big name to play the part of Joe Paterno, the then coach of Penn State’s football team while all of this was going on. The Oscar winner is set to play late college football legend Joe Paterno in a currently untitled HBO movie that chronicles the coach’s downfall in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal. According to TV Line
The project – directed by Barry Levinson, who teamed with Pacino on the recent HBO pic Wizard of Lies – will delve into how the darkest chapter in Penn State history challenged Paterno’s legacy as the winningest coach in college football history, forcing him to face questions of institutional failure on behalf of the victims.
I don’t know why but I’m having a hard time seeing Al Pacino playing Joe Paterno. I mean yeah, he’s played a coach before and quite well I might add in Any Given Sunday but this is awfully different. I guess what I’m more concerned with is how Levinson tried to portray Paterno? Will he be viewed as complicit in all of this? It’ll be interesting to see how the scandal is revisited and whether or not Levinson puts Paterno in a positive or negative light.
As more details emerge about the film (as in who will play Sandusky) we’ll let you know.
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