Director Brad Furman is lining up another project.  The filmmaker’s latest pic, Runner, Runner, opens in theaters this coming Friday, and Deadline reports that Furman has now signed on to write and direct Bigger for Bee Holder Productions.  The film tells the story of the bodybuilding brothers Joe and Ben Weider.  Joe created the Mr. Olympia competition and acted as a mentor for Arnold Schwarzenegger, and together with Ben he co-founded the International Federation of Body Builders.  The two built their empire from scratch, having grown up in poverty as the sons of Jewish immigrants.  Bee Holder has acquired the screen rights to the brothers’ biography Brothers of Iron, which will be used as a reference for the feature film.

In addition to Bigger, Furman is also attached to direct the two-part pilot for the James Patterson drama series adaptation Private.  Hit the jump to read the synopsis for Brothers of Iron.

Here’s the synopsis for Brothers of Iron:

In the depths of the Great Depression a scrawny, dirt-poor Jewish kid with a seventh-grade education picked up a barbell and got hooked on weight training. Building his muscles gave him confidence and hope for a better life. He pledged to make the great, transforming power of strength training available to everyone and to give bodybuilding all the glory it deserved. The kid, Joe Weider, enlisted his younger brother Ben in his quest, and together the Weider brothers accomplished things much bigger than Joe’s boyhood dreams. The little muscle magazine Joe started, working at his family’s dining room table, grew into a publishing empire. From a backyard barbell business, Joe and Ben built equipment and food supplement companies each as big as Weider Publishing. And they transformed bodybuilding into a hugely successful sport, organized under one of the largest and best-run athletic federations in the world.

The Weider brothers are heroes to bodybuilders and fans all over the world. They’re heroes because they’re revolutionaries. The Weiders changed the way people think about exercise, health, and what makes a body beautiful. They changed the world and Brothers of Iron tells their fascinating story. [Amazon]