Although his Sam Wilson may have been repeatedly outpaced by Steve Rogers in the recent Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie is now looking to play a runner that no one is going to bet against. Deadline reports that Mackie plans on playing Jesse Owens in a still-untitled biopic scripted by George Olson. Mackie will also produce alongside Jason Spire and screenwriter Jamie Linden.
Owens famously took home four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, striking a major moral blow to Adolf Hitler’s supremacist philosophy, while at the same time becoming a powerful symbol for America’s own struggles with racial inequality.
This Mackie-led project is just one of several Owens biopics in the works and it remains to be seen which one will make it to the finish line first.
Mackie can soon be seen next year in John Hillcoat’s Triple Nine and recently signed on for a leading role in Jonathan Levine’s still-untitled Christmas comedy opposite Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
(Photo Credit: Joe / WENN.com)
