Editorial Staff
Having seemingly successfully resurrected the Haddonfield maniac, “Halloween” helmer David Gordon Green is now turning his attention to getting the Panthers back on the playing field.
The versatile filmmaker, whose pre-Michael Myers include “Stronger” with Jake Gyllenhaal and the comedies “The Pineapple Express”, “Your Highness” and “The Sitter”, is bringing Buzz Bissinger’s non-fiction book “Friday Night Lights” back to the big screen.
Here’s the synopsis of the book : Odessa, Texas isn’t known to be a place big on dreams, but the Permian Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom and bust of the oil business. In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday Night from September to December, when the Permian high school Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true.
Here’s the bad news, “FNL” fans : The new movie won’t be connected to the 2004 movie starring Billy Bob Thornton or the Emmy-winning NBC series that ran from 2006-2011.
Yep, there was some talk about a “Friday Night Lights” movie that would play as a sequel to the NBC series, with Kyle Chandler and cast returning, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside – likely in favor of something a little less challenging to pull off, a fresh start movie.
Fortunately, there is one carry-oves from the original film and series. Brian Grazer, producer of the original “Friday Night Lights” film, is back onboard for the reboot.
Robert Schenkkan (“Hacksaw Ridge”, “The Pacific”) wrote the screenplay.
According to Schenkkan, over on Twitter, the film begins principal photography in September.
Principal photography on my screenplay starts in September. ‘Friday Night Lights’ New Film Taps Director David Gordon Green https://t.co/SCbMsCqMCg via @variety
— ROBERT SCHENKKAN (@ROBERTSCHENKKAN) May 9, 2018
This will be the first adaptation of “Friday Night Lights” not to involve – Bizzinger’s cousin and filmmaker – Peter Berg, who was largely responsible for both the feature and NBC series.
Berg was very keen to do a feature film that included the characters from the very popular TV series – like Chandler’s Coach Taylor, Connie Nielsen’s Tammy Taylor, Taylor Kitsch’s Tim Riggins and Minka Kelly‘s Lyla Garrity– but with some keen, and some not, it just wasn’t going to work out. Shame, that’s personally the film I would’ve loved to have seen.
