Alabama Movie in the Works

For those who don't know, I'm an aspiring screenwriter, so I check the logs each day for scripts that have been sold. This one should be interesting for all of us...

Title: Turning the Tide
Log line: Centers on the September 12, 1970 college football game between all-white Alabama Crimson Tide, led by the legendary Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, and the integrated USC Trojans.
Writer: Allan Graf and John Ledesma
Agent: BWCS (Graf)
Buyer: Whitelight Entertainment
Price: n/a
Genre: Sports Drama
Logged: 10/12/04
More: Based on the true story by John Papadakis. Whitelight Entertainment and Martini Films’ Johnny Martin will produce. Allan Graf will direct.

This doesn't mean it will ever see the light of day(A lot of scripts are bought, few are producted). However, it will be interesting to see how we are portrayed in this if it does get made.

Here is the link for the page I got it off of:

http://www.scriptsales.com
 
I did some research on Allan Graf, the writer and director. He's a stunt coordinator for a lot of films, particularly football films.

He's also a USC Alum and played on their 1972 National Championship team. I'll attach his Internet Movie Database bio below. Judging by this, though, the film is going to be a USC love fest.

Allan Graf (2nd unit director/stunt coordinator/football coordinator) is one of Hollywood's premier 2nd unit directors and stunt coordinators whose thirty-year career behind the cameras includes the staging of stunts in over five dozen films while directing second unit action on two dozen features, including Richard Donner's recent time-travel adventure, "Timeline," Randall Wallace's Vietnam War epic, "We Were Soldiers" (World Stunt Award nomination), Brian Helgeland's unique medieval adventure, "A Knight's Tale" and several projects with veteran filmmaker Walter Hill ("Last Man Standing," "Trespass," "Johnny Handsome" and "Another 48 Hours," on which Graf was the first to design and execute one of Hollywood's most unique stunts, a cannon roll off a bus).

A native of Southern California, Graf first made his mark on the gridiron, where he captained the 1967 San Fernando High School city championship team, winning All-American honors. He won a full athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California, and played offensive guard for John McKay's powerhouse Trojans. Graf started on McKay's legendary, undefeated (12-0) 1972 NCAA National Championship team, and was one of the heroes at the 1973 Rose Bowl, when USC defeated Ohio State. He next played in the 1973 college all-star game against the NFL's Miami Dolphins at Chicago's Soldier Field. Following graduation, Graf became a free agent with the Los Angeles Rams before joining the World Football League's Portland Storm during their inaugural 1974 season. When the league abruptly folded, Graf tackled a new arena when he ironically won a role as former Chicago Bears player Dick Butkus' stunt double in the 1976 Disney film, "Gus," a comic opus about a field-goal kicking mule.

Graf worked as a stunt player for several years on a variety of projects, notably, Hill's "Southern Comfort," "The Driver" and "The Long Riders," as well as "They Live," "Total Recall," "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," "Raising Arizona," "Action Jackson" and, more recently, "S.W.A.T.," "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" and "Independence Day." He has coordinated stunts on several other projects, including "Punch Drunk Love," "Domestic Disturbance," "Supernova," "Geronimo: An American Legend," "Wild Bill," "Wayne's World" and "Broken Arrow." He has also logged several supporting acting roles in such projects as "L.A. Confidential," "Poltergeist," "The Replacements," "Thirteen Days," "Magnolia," "The Limey," "The Doors," "Another 48 Hrs.," "RoboCop," and "Boogie Nights," among dozens of others.

The former college football great is also one of Hollywood's best known pigskin choreographers and 2nd unit directors, designing and staging the gridiron action for such films as Oliver Stone's epic, "Any Given Sunday," Howard Deutch's comedy, "The Replacements," "The Program," "The Waterboy," "Necessary Roughness," the current production "Cheer Up" and Cameron Crowe's Oscar-nominated classic, "Jerry Maguire." Graf recently penned an original screenplay entitled "Turning the Tide," a football drama which depicts the historic 1970 gridiron contest between McKay's USC Trojans and Bear Bryant's Crimson Tide. The film is currently in development.
 
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Diamond. I too am a screenwriter with 3 screenplays to my credit so far.

I haven't had much luck selling them, but do enjoy writing nonetheless.

My favorite site is script-o-rama.com, which is actually Drew's script-o-rama. He not only posts scripts from almost every movie ever written he also posts some by amatuers like us.

Finally, I also enjoy IMDB too!
 
I am an IMDB fan myself. Good luck with your writing. I wish I had the patience and know how to sit down and write like that. I cant hardly stand writing papers in college much less screen writing.
 
I hated writing in college too, but it is totally different >>>

ROLLTIDEBAMA said:
I am an IMDB fan myself. Good luck with your writing. I wish I had the patience and know how to sit down and write like that. I cant hardly stand writing papers in college much less screen writing.


When you're creative writing and writing about something you are passionate about as opposed to writing about 16th Century Proloteriots!
 
My guess is that this will be just another movie painting the South in the worst possible light. Southerners will be generally portrayed as ignorant, crude, ugly, backwards, unwashed racists. On the other hand, the Southern Cal contingent will be cast as all that is good about the human race. They will benevolently condescend to teach us the errors of our ways in a noble attempt to bring us into the 20th century.

In other words, more of the same old tripe from Hollywood.
 
TommyMac said:
My guess is that this will be just another movie painting the South in the worst possible light. Southerners will be generally portrayed as ignorant, crude, ugly, backwards, unwashed racists. On the other hand, the Southern Cal contingent will be cast as all that is good about the human race. They will benevolently condescend to teach us the errors of our ways in a noble attempt to bring us into the 20th century.

In other words, more of the same old tripe from Hollywood.

I'm afraid your probably going to be right about that. I hope they do Coach Bryant's legacy right and not make him out to be the bad guy. He would have integrated the Alabama football program a lot sooner had it been up to him.

The other thing I'm sure they'll not cover is the fact that the very next year we went out to Los Angeles with pretty much the same white boys and beat USC on their home turf. It was the unveiling of our wishbone running attack used throughout the 70's.
 
I too am worried about how we will be portrayed. I know that a lot of our image problems we brought on ourselves, but enough is enough. I will give hollywood credit for at least occasionally treating us better (My Cousin Vinnie, Steel Magnolias). But they keep trying to fit Southerners in to nice little boxes. You can't possibly explain the South. The South just is.


The Oscar for the worst Southern accent in a movie has to go to Nicholas Cage in Con Air. "Put the bunny back in the box" My girlfriend and I rolled on the floor laughing at his accent.
 
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Could play the role of

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Truthfully speaking there were a couple of black players on the Alabama football roster prior to 1972 they just didn't play. Coach Bryant always said he bought his time on that issue and knew if he just tried to do it, people would fight him on it, so he interated the football team on the field with a through thrashing at the hands of an integrated team.
 

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