Ben Foster In Talks To Play Lance Armstrong in Stephen Frears Directed Biopic
Lance Armstrong's career may be on the rocks, but Hollywood is clamoring to depict the rise and fall of the former cycling hero.
The latest news regarding biopics of the shamed athlete comes from a film that will be directed by Stephen Frears (Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight). Ben Foster (Ain't Them Bodies Saints) is in talks to feature in the currently untitled work as Armstrong, according to Celebuzz.
Foster was in two of this year's Sundance films, Ain't Them Bodies Saints and Kill Your Darlings, and previously appeared in last year's Contraband and 2007's 3:10 to Yuma. The 32-year-old recently took Shia LaBeouf's forsaken role in Broadway's Orphans.
After Armstrong's long battle with doping accusations and the lose of his Tour de France titles, the cyclist finally admitted to using performance enhancing drugs during an interview with Oprah in January. Since this admission, several studios have scoped up rights to the onetime hero's story.
The Frears project is written by John Hodge (Trainspotting) and will be produced by Working Title's Tim Bevan (The World's End) and Eric Fellner (The World's End), according to E! Online. Recently Sony also picked up a Armstrong flick, a documentary by Alex Gibney, according to Variety. Meanwhile, J.J. Abrams (Star Trek Into Darkness) is reported to be producing a film based on the Juliet Macur book Cycle of Lie: The Fall of Lance Armstrong.
