Liev Schreiber Wants To Play The Boxer Who Inspired Rocky
Liev Schreiberis ready to fight. He’s got his eye on a biopic ofChuck “The Bayonne Bleeder” Wepner, a heavyweight boxer from New Jersey who has been said to be the inspiration behind Sylvester Stallone’sRocky. (Let’s not have any grumbling that a Philly icon like Rocky may be based on a guy from Jersey.) The actor calls Wepner’s story hilarious and remarkable, and would like to make it his next picture.MTVspoke with Schreiber, who says he’s already got a director set up:Jeff Feuerzeig, who directed the docThe Devil and Daniel Johnston. (Much of Feuerzeig’s film work to date has been in music-based docs, with subjects that include Johnston, Jon Hendricks and the band Half Japanese.) Neat choice, that.
Wepner’s story is certainly notable thanks to a bout with Muhammad Ali. The champ wanted an easy fight, and Wepner signed on for the biggest payday of his career and a change to go toe to toe with one of the greats. Amazingly, he stayed on his feet through 15 rounds, only being taken down in a TKO seconds before the end of the fight. Ali said of Wepner, “There’s not another human being in the world that can go 15 rounds like that.” (Timehas a great write-up on the fight, published in April of ‘75.)
That fight is reportedly what inspired Sylvester Stallone to writeRocky, and you can see why a direct cinematic version of the bout would make for great cinema. There’s already one notable boxing movie coming soon —The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell, based on the life of “Irish” Mickey Ward — but this sounds like it could be a completely different beast. But ‘hilarious’, as Schreiber said? Interesting. I wouldn’t want to see Wepner’s life parodied, so hopefully he’s got something else in mind.
