Teddy Schwarzman, a producer who recently worked on the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, has just picked up the rights to The Rocket, a drama based on baseball player Roger Clemens. Or, as The Hollywood Reporter puts it, he’s “taking on another true-life figure tarnished during his day.” The comparison there is obviously very appropriate because Alan Turing helped defeat the Nazis, was arrested for being gay, and was then forced to undergo hormone injections, while Roger Clemens is a former star pitcher whose reputation was damaged when he was accused of using steroids. As far as injustices go, they’re practically the same.
Anyway, The Rocket will follow the later years of Clemens’ career, and it will primarily focus on the friendship between him and his former trainer, Brian McNamee—who also happens to be the guy who probably gave him steroids. It sounds like Schwarzman had to fight a pretty hard battle to win the rights—which is to say that he probably paid a ton of money—with THR saying Warner Bros. was intent on picking up The Rocket so it could potentially become a starring vehicle for Bradley Cooper. The studio was probably hoping it could cash in on the continued popularity of American Sniper by putting out another movie where Cooper plays a slightly pudgy guy who is really good at hitting small targets with things.