Football may currently be the most popular sport in America, but baseball will always be “America’s Pastime”.  It was our first widely popular sport, and it contained both the best of our abilities and the worst of our perceptions.  Segregation in baseball was never official.  It was an unwritten rule agreed upon by the owners and “enforced” by the commissioner.  Baseball, in its rules, is a pure sport, but in its practice, was tainted by institutional racism.  Jackie Robinson didn’t just break the color barrier in a sport; he completed the greatness of America’s Pastime. He is a transformative figure, and in 42, writer-director Brian Helgeland pays complete and utter devotion to Robinson’s legend.  Strangely, despite his attempt to paint Robinson’s accomplishment as a mythic battle between good and evil, the story never feels larger than a TV movie.

We have over 40 new images from director Brian Helgeland’s Jackie Robinson biopic 42 to share with you today.  Starring Chadwick Boseman (Persrons Unknown) in the lead role, 42 tells the story of Robinson, the first player to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier by signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Harrison Ford co-stars as Branch Rickey, the MLB exec who signed Robinson into the minors and ushered him along to the pros.  Also starring Nicole Beharie, T.R. Knight, Christopher Meloni and Toby Huss, 42 opens April 12th.  Hit the jump to see 45 new images from the film along with some behind-the-scenes shots. 

We have some movie casting updates to share with you today. Here they are at a glance:

• Lucas Till (X-Men: First Class) is in talks to join the corporate espionage thriller Paranoia opposite Liam Hemsworth.
• T.R. Knight (Grey’s Anatomy) will join the Jackie Robinson biopic, 42, where he will play the Dodgers traveling secretary tasked with sussing out the housing situation once Robinson joins the team.
• Adepero Oduye (Pariah) is in negotiations to join Steve McQueen’s Twelve Years a Slave with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt.

Hit the jump for much more on each project.