K.T Simpson
Word is that “Disaster Artist” star and director James Franco is in talks with Focus Pictures to direct a film based on 2011 book “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.
The book chronicled the formation of the powerhouse sports network in oral history form. Collider reports that Christoper C. Rogers has been assigned script-writing duties. The film adaptation will follow Bill Rasmussen, a communications executive who teamed up with his son, Scott, to launch the world’s first 24-hour cable TV network. But first, the Rasmussens had to max out their credit cards to scrape together enough cash to reserve a satellite transponder so they could show sporting events nonstop throughout the day.
Other key characters in the story include Stu Evey, the former Getty Oil executive who became the founding chairman of ESPN; NBC Sports president Chet Simmons, who left NBC to become the president of ESPN; RCA salesman Al Parinello; Anheuser-Busch exec Claude Bishop; and Scotty Connal, an early VP of production at ESPN.
