Bradley Cooper to Produce and Possibly Star in Lance Armstrong Movie, RED BLOODED AMERICAN

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Bradley Cooper to Produce and Possibly Star in Jay Roach's Lance Armstrong Movie, RED BLOODED AMERICAN

By Matt Goldberg

Published Aug 16, 2013

Bradley Cooper will produce and possibly play one of the two lead roles in Jay Roach's Lance Armstrong movie, Red Blooded American.

Maybe it's because I'm not into cycling, but I could not care less about Lance Armstrong. To me, he's a guy who survived testicular cancer, cheated to win a bunch of Tour de France titles, denied that he was cheating for a long time, and then finally admitted he was cheating. He's not the first athlete to cheat, and he won't be the last. That doesn't make him a compelling figure, and yet Alex Gibney will have a documentary about the cyclist, The Armstrong Lie, at TIFF, and there are also three non-documentary features in the works. Working Title has one by Stephen Frears (The Queen) and starring Ben Foster. The second is Bad Robot partners J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk adapting Juliet Macur's book Cycle Of Lies: The Fall Of Lance Armstrong. The third, Red Blooded American, is by Jay Roach, and Deadline is reporting that Bradley Cooper has joined the project to produce and possibly star.

Hit the jump for more.

Cooper was originally eyed for Bad Robot's Armstrong movie, but he's been wooed to Roach's film at Warner Bros. The Oscar-nominated actor is looking to play one of two main roles in Red Blooded American: Armstrong or his former teammate and confidant Tyler Hamilton. Hamilton came forward to reveal Armstrong's doping, and received "blistering attacks" from Armstrong as retaliation.

Warner Bros. and Working Title are competing to get their Armstrong movie on the screen first (Bad Robot appears to be in a distant third), but Working Title may be ready to go as early as this fall. Deadline reports Cooper has a busy schedule, and this fall will be shooting in Hawaii for Cameron Crowe's untitled feature. After that, there may be some time for him to do Red Blooded American, but he's going to Broadway for The Elephant Man. In between, Cooper and Warner Bros. are trying to figure out what to do with American Sniper now that Steven Spielberg has left the project.

Perhaps one or more of these projects will find a unique angle on Lance Armstrong's story, but right now his rise-and-fall seem like they would make for a TV movie at best.