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Lance Armstrong to race himself to a cinema near you as Warner Bros snaps up Tyler Hamilton life story

Two Armstrong films slated for production as media fascination with 'flawed hero' continues...

Warner Brothers is said to have snapped up the film rights to Tyler Hamilton’s life story, in a move that puts the studio in a race of its own with rival Paramount to be the first to put into cinemas a movie whose subject matter includes the shaming of Lance Armstrong.

As we reported in January, Paramount has partnered with production company Bad Robot to work on a film version of the forthcoming book Cycle of Lies: The Fall Of Lance Armstrong which is being written by sportswriter Juliet Macur of The New York Times.

Now, Deadline.com says that Warner Brothers, having acquired the rights from Atlas Entertainment, is making a film based on Hamilton's life story - although it has not, as we originally stated, bought the rights to the book The Secret Race that Hamilton co-wrote with the writer and journalist Daniel Coyle. The website adds that Jay Roach will direct the project.

His previous films include Meet The Parents and Meet The Fockers, as well as the Austin Powers trilogy, though we’re guessing that the film based on Hamilton's life story - much of which, of course, overlaps with that of his former US Postal team mate and then rival, Armstriong - will have rather more of a serious tone.

According to Deadline.com, Scott Z Burns has been brought on board as screenwriter. His credits as a writer include The Bourne Ultimatum, and he’s certainly keeping busy, having written the screenplays for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, due out next year, and a movie version of 1960s TV series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Different Hollywood studios working on separate treatments of the same subject with near-identical release dates is nothing new, of course, as this article from the website 11 Points highlights, giving the examples of such as meteor disaster movies Deep Impact and Armageddon, animated features Antz and A Bug’s Life, and the Westerns, Tombstone and Wyatt Earp.

The difference with the movies based on Hamilton's story and Cycle of Lies, of course, is that they are both based on recent, factual events with which much of the audience will be familiar, whether that be the aspects relating to racing itself, or the lifting of the veil over doping that has happened more recently.

Meanwhile, Armstrong makes the cover of the latest issue of the magazine Texas Monthly in an interview that covers a lot of ground that will be familiar to anyone following the saga in recent months, but which also lifts the lid on issues such as his not being universally popular in his home city of Austin, even before his carefully constructed façade began to crumble last year.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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7 comments

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Karbon Kev | 11 years ago
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oh for gods sake ...

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Viro Indovina | 11 years ago
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I'm betting Fred it's gonna be Costner.

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Leviathan | 11 years ago
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It would be interesting to see who will have the ball(s) to play him as a driven megalomaniac and see a movie where the central character has no story arc, no redemption and learns nothing by the end. You could call it 'There Will Be Court Cases.'

I would watch it though I wouldn't PAY money to see it, let Americans fund it. I need all my flick pennies for Star Trek. There are alternative means of viewing content *wiggles eyebrows*  19

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johnniex | 11 years ago
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" ... two Armstrong films are slated ..." If the critics have any sense, they will be.

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Colin Peyresourde | 11 years ago
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I can understand your resentment and view point. I also think that people deserve second chances. Hamilton walked away from the sport with virtually nothing. I know it's not easy for Cooke and co either, but you should probably try to understand the circumstances that led to him doping. I think if you also listen to some you would say any pro rider is doped (this was Armstrong's reasoning), so who is to say that Cooke and others never doped. At some point you have to lay these things to rest. I personally think that by laying his cards face up Hamilton has exposed the major flaw in dope testing. He has helped expose the biggest fraud in sports history, I think that is an important moment for sport and cycling. There are two sides to the story and maybe the film will show him good and bad. Maybe he will donate the money to a good cause.

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doc | 11 years ago
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Well, if the films ever make it over to UK, then the best thing would be to stay away. Showing what UK bike riders think of people who cheated the sport and everyone else, now try to make money off the back of it. The same reason I won't even borrow TH book from the library.

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fiftyacorn | 11 years ago
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Nicole Cooke was right when she wrote about the likes of Hamilton making more from their doping story than she did in her entire clean career.

If there is demand for this story then they should pay Betsy & Frankie Andreu for their story - not Hamilton

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