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Mark Wahlberg was the only major actor in The FIghter not to score an acting Oscar nomination, but he may in fact be the one most committed to the ongoing saga of Micky Ward. On the red carpet before Sunday's Oscar ceremony, he dropped to Extra's Mario Lopez that he wanted to make a second film about the boxer's life. The video is below, but I've taken out the quote since I can barely hear anything he's saying: "Now we're gonna talk about doing No. 2. We're gonna do the Ward /Gatti trilogy and make it real."
The Gatti fights, which all happened after what we see in The Fighter, were a series of three bouts between Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti, beginning in 2002. Ward earned $3 million during the fights, and two were named "Fight of the Year" by Ring magazine. Clearly a movie about the three bouts would be of interest to boxing fans, but without the emotional thread of brother ****y Eklund's recovery from crack, would the movie be nearly as good?
It's also unclear who Wahlberg means by "we"-- he's been involved in the project longer than director David O. Russell, and it's easy to imagine him going forward without the director, though given how close the two of them are Wahlberg might be able to talk him into it. Would you guys watch another movie about Micky Ward, or have you had your fill of boxing movies unless there's a story like ****y's to balance it out?
My opinion: I think you have to anchor the movie with Gatti's story in parallel with Ward's story to make it work.
The Gatti fights, which all happened after what we see in The Fighter, were a series of three bouts between Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti, beginning in 2002. Ward earned $3 million during the fights, and two were named "Fight of the Year" by Ring magazine. Clearly a movie about the three bouts would be of interest to boxing fans, but without the emotional thread of brother ****y Eklund's recovery from crack, would the movie be nearly as good?
It's also unclear who Wahlberg means by "we"-- he's been involved in the project longer than director David O. Russell, and it's easy to imagine him going forward without the director, though given how close the two of them are Wahlberg might be able to talk him into it. Would you guys watch another movie about Micky Ward, or have you had your fill of boxing movies unless there's a story like ****y's to balance it out?
My opinion: I think you have to anchor the movie with Gatti's story in parallel with Ward's story to make it work.
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