When they retire, most sportsmen follow a predictable path. Some go into TV and become ‘knowledgeable pundits’. Some run pubs. Some – allegedly – kill their wives and get away with it.
But, for former Ohio State American football (otherwise known as rugby for girls) team starting centre (we think that means he starts in the centre), Leonard Hartman, he decided to use that noggin of his – which, after all, was well-protected with a helmet – as a force for screenwriting good.
Don’t think of this as analogous to, say, Wayne Rooney suddenly pitching a movie – for the result of that would be hideous and possibly directed by Nick Love, starring Danny Dyer. Instead, Hartman went to the AFI, graduated, set up his own company, sold a spec script to the late Alan J. Pakula, and has been busily beavering away on scripts ever since.
Two of which, in fact, he’s sold to Universal, including a pitch that will be turned into a Goosebumps movie (the horror franchise for teens), and a period pitch which will be produced by Seabiscuit director, Gary Ross.
And today, he made it three for three with Universal, as they probably say in American football circles, by flogging them - for a cool six figures - a spec script for an action thriller called Fury.
Sadly, all we know about it is that it has supernatural overtones, it’s about a group of Special Forces soldiers (who presumably become really furious about something) and that it will be produced by Scott Stuber and Mary Parent. Which is why we waited until the sixth paragraph to tell you that.
Anyway, once more news breaks about Fury – which we presume is not related to the Brian De Palma flick, The Fury, in which John Cassavetes’ head explodes (SPOILER!) – we’ll be there. Now, hut hut hut! 48! 23! 892!