Michael Shannon, David Corenswet to Star in New Football Biopic!!

Clark Kent and General Zod are together again, for the first time. Intense thespian Michael Shannon, who played the Kryptonian villain in Man of Steel, is teaming up with newly minted Superman David Corenswet for a new movie chronicling the tragically short life of a lesser-known sports hero. Corenswet will play running back John Tuggle, while Shannon will portray legendary coach Bill Parcells in the as-yet untitled film.

Tuggle, a running back who helped UC Berkeley reach their first bowl game in twenty years, was drafted last overall in the 1983 NFL Draft, 335th overall in the 12th round, by the New York Giants. The last player selected in the draft is traditionally known as “Mr. Irrelevant”: other players with that tag include Super Bowl champ Ryan Succop and current San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy. Tuggle made the team out of training camp, becoming the first Mr. Irrelevant to make the NFL with the team that drafted him. However, his career, and his life, would be cut tragically short when he was diagnosed with cancer; Tuggle died at age 25 in 1986. His coach with the Giants was Parcells, a legend in his own right. A two-time Super Bowl champ, Parcells (nicknamed “The Big Tuna”) is the only man to coach four different NFL franchises into the playoffs, making at least the conference championships with three of them. The film will focus on the relationship between the two men, as Parcells advocates for the team to take a chance on the unproven Tuggle.

What Has Michael Shannon Starred in Lately?

Shannon recently starred in the biker epic The Bikeriders, alongside Tilda Swinton in the apocalyptic musical The End, and as himself in A Different Man. Later this year, Shannon will play assassinated 19th-century US President James A. Garfield in the miniseries Death by Lightning, and will play war crimes prosecutor Robert H. Jackson in Nuremberg. He has also recently filmed the indie comedies Bulls and Dead Guy, and is slated to play Red Scare hellraiser Joseph McCarthy in an upcoming biopic.

The Tuggle film will be directed by Jonathan Levine (The Night Before, Long Shot), from a script by Nick Santora (Reacher, FUBAR). Levine will produce with Gillian Bohrer from Megamix, as will Santora for his Blackjack Films banner. The film is a production of Skydance Sports.