Al Pacino has been appropriately cast as Joe Paterno in a movie that will be based on the devastating Penn State gridiron scandal. We all knew this was going to find its way to the big screen, and Pacino is the perfect actor to take on the role of the Penn State football coach. The movie will be built around writer Joe Posnanski’s biography Paterno.
According to Deadline, the film will tell the true story of a man who becomes "the winningest coach in college football history and builds a powerhouse football program that turns him into a campus deity. When his former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky is revealed to be a pedophile and it comes out Paterno was told and helped hide the scandal, the coach was summarily fired. He died shortly after of cancer — and many feel of a broken heart — and the school had little choice but to raze a fabled statue of Paterno just as the NCAA dropped the hammer with sanctions against the school that included removal of Paterno’s wins going back to the cover-up." Sandusky was later found guilty on 45 counts of sexual abuse against young boys and is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison.
This was such a sad event, and it's crazy how this whole thing unfolded, but it should make for some good movie drama. What do you all think about Pacino playing Paterno? It's not the first time he's taken on a role like this, he played an NFL coach in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday. Is this a movie you'd like to see get made?