Gerard Butler Begins Playing The Field

From the LA Times:

There hasn't been a good soccer-based movie in a long time -- you have to go back to "Bend It Like Beckham" in 2003, if not before. Gerard Butler will try to change that.

The Scottish actor (and Celtic fan) this week began shooting "Playing the Field," a story about soccer, the suburbs and sexual attraction. The sport will serve as a backdrop for what is a kind of "Shampoo" set amid American manicured lawns.

According to a person familiar with the production who was not authorized to speak about it publicly, Stuart Blumberg -- the "Kids Are All Right" co-writer who garnered an Oscar nomination for penning the family dramedy -- recently came on to write a new draft of Rob Fox's script.

Despite the American setting, the project has a transatlantic feel. Italian director Gabriele Muccino ("The Pursuit of Happyness," the original Italian-language "Last Kiss") is behind the camera.

Butler and Jessica Biel play an estranged couple, with the cast also including Judy Greer and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who 24 Frames has learned have recently signed on, joining Dennis Quaid and Uma Thurman. In addition to Butler, Heidi Jo Markel, Kevin Misher, Jonathan Mostow and Alan Siegel are producing.

Originally conceived as a Little League story (title: "Confessions of a Little League Coach") the project has morphed into a tale about footy. Basically, it involves an accomplished Beckham-like pro (Butler) who after living a playboy life throughout Europe returns to his estranged American wife and child to try to reconcile with them. He begins coaching youth soccer to show his commitment.

But things get sticky when a number of the local women take a shine to him, including characters played by Thurman (Quaid's wife), Zeta Jones (a vixen newscaster) and Greer (a hot-and-bothered housewife). The comedy has distribution around the world and will be seeking a U.S. home.

With the MLS season underway and Champions League play hitting the quarterfinals, thoughts (for some) turn to soccer. And, perhaps, to soccer movies.

--Steven Zeitchik
twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/04/gerard-butler-playing-the-field-soccer-movie-uma-thurman.html

Have you noticed this article says - estranged wife, not divorced wife? Having a rewrite reminds me of the trouble with 'LAC'. I hope this doesn't spell disaster.

Interesting about Stuart Blumberg -- I really liked the "Kids Are All Right". Maybe this is a good sign. Otherwise, the story just has no appeal to me. And the "Shampoo" comparison makes me cringe. This isn't 1975 and I don't have any desire to see Gerry play a character that sounds like a caricature of his tabloid/public image. Geez, he would just be playing himself, or trying to make everyone believe he is. I am tired of the arrested development man-child Gerry persona. It ranks up there with Charlie Sheen and his constant "Duh!" and "Winning!" comments. It is annoying and unattractive and just plain wierd coming from a man in his 40's. I don't want to pay money to see a movie about a horny man-child.

I hope the "Shampoo" comparison is someone's attempt at trying to explain the movie (and make it seem great). Personally I did not think "The Bounty Hunter" was the "War of the Roses" meets "Midnight Run" like Gerry described it. TBH wasn't even close to the quality of those movies and those performances in my opinion. I think they wanted (and wished) that it was like those movies, but the end product wasn't.

In this case, I hope "Playing the Field" is nothing like "Shampoo". I have no interest in seeing that type of movie surrounded by the world of soccer with kids thrown in.

Blech.

I never saw "Shampoo" nor had/have any desire to do so.

If I want to see horny man-children, I can see those for free right here in my neighborhood. I don't need to pay money to see it.

Acording to this article, Biel is an ex-wife, engaged to another, that Butler cheated on:

http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/movie-news/zeta-jones-greer-are-playing-the-field-with-gerard-butler.php

Zeta Jones & Greer Are PLAYING THE FIELD With Gerard Butler

As bizarre as it is to think that Gabrielle Muccino, the serious minded dramatic helmer of the two Will Smith character pieces The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds is currently filming a broad, soccer mums comedy starring Gerard Butler as a school team’s coach who has a past for womanizing and a current penchant for sleeping with the mum’s of his players, I can’t help but be intrigued by it.

In fact, I might be ready to go against my original summation of Playing The Field two months ago and maybe it won’t be as small minded as I presumed. According to 24 Frames, Stuart Blumberg, the Oscar nominated co-screenwriter of The Kids Are All Right has just been brought in to sharpen Rob Fox’s (So I Married An Axe Murderer) original screenplay and perhaps make it play deeper with more on it’s mind, i.e. more Muccino like.


Now usually re-writing scripts when filming is already underway is a huge ‘deer in the road’ warning and you would be advised to swerve and miss it to avoid a car crash situation, but I’m wondering whether Muccino, who perhaps was originally hired to direct a Joe Popcorn friendly, slapstick romantic comedy, can’t but help himself explore something a bit deeper.

The movie is being described as “a dramedy about soccer, the suburbs and sexual attraction” and “a kind of Shampoo set amid American manicured lawns”, and well, when was the last time you heard of a broad rom-com cite Hal Ashby?

Surrounding Gerard Butler’s troubled father and former semi-pro professional who attempts to make up for lost time by coaching his son’s team to success is his long-suffering American ex-wife Jessica Alba (who he has cheated on whilst playing in Europe and who is now engaged to somebody else) and the various soccer mom’s he gets entangled with, including Uma Thurman (who plays the wife of Dennis Quaid’s rival team coach character in the film) and the newly cast Catherine Zeta Jones (newcaster) and Judy Greer (housewife).



I’m just starting to get a feeling about this one, perhaps it’ll be a Gerard Butler movie post-300 that works.

Playing The Field already has European distribution but is still trying to work out a deal for U.S. distribution.

And this one confirms that Butler will not be doing an American accent:

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Catherine-Zeta-Jones-And-Judy-Greer-Join-Playing-The-Field-Stuart-Blumberg-Doing-Rewrites-24050.html

Catherine Zeta-Jones And Judy Greer Join Playing The Field, Stuart Blumberg Doing Rewrites

For a while, back in August of last year, it looked like we might be getting an adaptation of Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher, another novel from the Little Children author about sexuality and repression in the American suburbs. That adaptation, which was rumored to have Sandra Bullock and Steve Carell interested at one point, doesn't seem to be going anywhere at the moment, which is leaving from for Playing the Field to take its place.

The comedy, starring Gerard Butler as a youth soccer coach getting romantically entangled with various women in his neighborhood, starts filming this week, and two more smitten women have been added to the cast. According to The LA Times Catherine Zeta-Jones and Judy Greer have each signed on to play neighborhood women who have the hots for Butler's character; they're competing against Uma Thurman, who is married to Dennis Quaid in the film, and Jessica Biel, who plays Butler's estranged wife. Thankfully Butler won't be asked to provide one of his characteristically terrible accents-- his character is a professional European soccer player who moves to the suburbs in order to be closer to his kids.

Gabriele Muccino will be looking to make up for his last film, the disastrous Seven Pounds, by directing this one, and he's at least managed to assemble an impressive cast to have faith in him. He's also brought in a pinch hitter-- sorry, wrong sports metaphor-- to help him out; the Times is hearing from sources close to the production that Stuart Blumberg, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of The Kids Are All Right, has been brought on board to tweak the script originally written by Rob Fox. Given that Kids had one of the better comedy screenplays in recent memory, Blumberg's participation would be another huge step forward for this movie. Keep this up, Muccino, and I may pretend I never lost those two hours to Seven Pounds after all.

Translated interview with Gabriele Muccino:

http://www.repubblica.it/persone/2011/04/06/news/muccino_intervista-14559456/

"Hollywood, so many fears"
The director Roman has just started his third film in Louisiana in the United States, "Playing the Field." A comedy starring Gerard Butler, also a producer, Uma Thurman and Jessica Biel. "With the crisis manufacturers are much more cautious and there is distrust of the European directors'

ROME - Gabriele Muccino to the discovery of deep. The Roman film began shooting on Monday of the Playing Field in Shreveport, a city in northern Louisiana, not far from the borders of Texas. After The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds, both produced and starring Will Smith, Playing the field is his third film in the U.S., also produced and played by an actor, Gerard Butler, who is considered among the most compelling of sex symbol, has sparked the imagination of Hollywood gossip on a fulminant flirt (already refuted) with Jessica Biel, starring with Uma Thurman, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta Jones.

An excellent cast that "it was not difficult to put together, have all acceded to the first reading of the script. Playing the field is a comedy, albeit personal, that can touch other strings. It all started with Gerard Butler, has found a group of producers who believed in the movie and I decided to jump on this train, I think the most fair at this point in my life. I did dramas, including personal, but I think we all need in this moment of lightness as the bread after the war, "Muccino says by phone from Shreveport.

Who is the protagonist?
"A former Scottish footballer who played in big European teams, has had success, fame, money, women, but his career was brief and ended in a modest team of small town America, then he wasted his life, he divorced his wife, left the child. The relationship with the child is central to the film, is to try to retrieve it back into town. "

You love football?
"I've never been a big fan and this is not a film about football, but on interaction that humans are amplified around the ground where the protagonist, who returned without art nor part, lends itself to train the school children of his son of nine years. The stock is little more than an excuse to tell the community of this town in the middle of America, where boredom reigns and plastic surgery. The hero becomes the news, bored women fall for him, betrayed, in a desperate attempt his compensation, revenge, complicating his good intentions, the desire to grow, to return home, to find the family. "

He knew the town America?
"I know New York and Los Angeles, I had never been in a place like Shreveport. A place no place, like thousands of others, without identity. For the people the center of the world is here, not like to travel and many do not even have the passport. I know that they are surprised when I hear about so many of my strange accent. Here, Italy is only the name of a distant place, somewhere. "

Who are the female characters in the film?
"Jessica Biel is his wife, Uma Thurman plays the wife of a rich, powerful, arrogant, unfaithful - Dennis Quaid - an unhappy woman looking for a revenge in life. Catherine Zeta Jones is a former sports journalist, television producer, who will try to help the protagonist find a job as a reporter. "

How do you find work in America?
"The most complicated is the relationship with Hollywood. Work with manufacturers to get them to make a film as you want it is exhausting, and often the case with European directors."

Hollywood has changed a lot over the years?
"In 2005, when I came for the first time, albeit in a structured system, there was more courage, more willing to look beyond the borders more open. The economic crisis has made everyone more cautious, Hollywood was closed in same and luckily I know the rules of the game. "

Closing including against foreign films?
"Only in a few cities, there are rooms for subtitled movies. Italian films come out with great difficulty, if I am the love of Guadagnino was a great episode, is a rare collection so remarkable and so strong an interest for a Italian film. Guadagnino could have a bright future in America. "

And his future instead?
"I do not know. I'll be here until May 29, I got home, I brought the family. Of course I still like to work in Italy, but the opportunity that I fall I like him too, is something that makes the film still a game. "

His project for a film with Stefano Accorsi withered on the band of robbers?
"For now it is one of the possible projects. But really I do not know what's next. It's the magic and beauty of the film, I was hoping to Passengers, a love story in the space and find myself in Louisiana to make a romantic comedy . Then we'll see where life takes me. "
( April 6, 2011 )

Looks like Russell Brand is making a soccer movie too:

http://www.matchfitusa.com/2011/04/gerard-butler-and-russell-brand-plan-to.html

Gerard Butler and Russell Brand Plan to Make Soccer Movies with Terrible Sounding Plots

There's a shortage of good American soccer movies in this world. Sylvester Stallone's goalmouth heroics in a German war camp aside, most of the soccer films made with a tinge of Yank flavor are of the youth-soccer variety. When they do involve professionals, the premise tends to be ridiculous, the cameos unsubtle, the soccer action clumsy.


Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the collections will improve any time soon, with two stars from across The Pond set to roll out tired plot devices. Instead of the bumbling-dad-turns-the-rag-tag-bunch-into-a-winner (a story done in every sport multiple times, with Kicking and Screaming being the most recent notable soccer example), the paradigm has shifted to foreign-ex-player-coaches-American-youth-team-hilarity-and/or-sexiness-ensues.


Gerard Butler is already filming one of these, titled "Playing the Field." In addition to the Irishman Scotsman (oops), Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman, Judy Greer and Catherine Zeta-Jones are on board. This sounds like less of a soccer movie than a "Desperate Housewives" rehash with a soccer mom backdrop. In fact, even if this turns out to be decent film, it will probably be a stretch to call it a soccer movie. The flick was originally going to be a baseball story, but the addition of Butler obviously necessitated a change in the concept. Lovely.


Russell Brand wants to do a soccer movie too. Set in Texas, the script calls for the English comedian to play an alcoholic ex-footballer stranded in a place where no one cares about the sport. A fish-out-of-water soccer picture? Awesome!


Brand's character will definitely find himself in some wacky situations when he calls the game "football" in the middle of American football-mad Texas!


The exclamation points are making me nauseous. Is it too much to ask for a "serious" big budget soccer movie that doesn't involve soccer moms, youth soccer, or culture shock?


A note for Hollywood: Americans can be ex-professional soccer players, too. Really, I swear.

Europeans may see this movie before Americans.

Dallas wrote:

I am tired of the arrested development man-child Gerry persona.

i'm thinking maybe we are ALL in agreement on this one.