First the star, then the director. That’s the way I, Tonya has been put together, with Craig Gillespie (Lars And The Real Girl) signing up to oversee Margot Robbie's ‘90s ice-skating biopic, a drama about disgraced skater Tonya Harding and her run-in with rival Nancy Kerrigan.
Initially viewed as a plucky underdog who'd escaped grinding poverty to rise to the top of the figure-skating world, Harding famously went full Seagal on her closest rival at a championships in Detroit. Her husband of the time, Jeff Gillooly, attacked Kerrigan with a police baton, leaving her with a badly bruised, but not broken leg.
Riffing on baseball’s Shot 'Heard Around The World, tabloid types immediately dubbed the incident 'The Whack Heard Round The World'. It’d all been captured on camera, leaving Harding disgraced and eventually banned. Kerrigan recovered in time to compete in the 1994 Olympics.
Screenwriter Steven Rogers will be trying to bring added insights into a bizarre chapter in winter sports history (Blades Of Inglory? Very Uncool Runnings?) recently illuminated by an ESPN 30 For 30 documentary. He’s spoken to the major players in the drama, including Harding and Gillooly.
Robbie, meanwhile, has a plate fuller than Mr. Creosote this year. She’s got Legend Of Tarzan with Domhnall Gleeson, is starring as Harley Quinn Suicide Squad this summer, and has just tied the knot on A. A. Milne biopic Goodbye Christopher Robin. There’s also Terminal, a hit-man thriller with Simon Pegg and Mike Myers, underway in Hungary.