And so it has been portended that, every five or six years, acclaimed writer-director David O. Russell and megastar actor Mark Wahlberg must come together, so that a new piece of cinematic art is brought to fruition. Since The Fighter came out back in 2010, it’s just about time for the prophecy to once again be realized. And, as Vulture reports, that’s precisely what’s happening. Wahlberg announced via Facebook Live yesterday morning that he and Russell are currently developing what will be their fourth together.
According to the Academy Award-nominee (yes, Mark Wahlberg was nominated for an Oscar), the film will be a sports biopic like The Fighter. The subject this time around will be football player turned Catholic priest Father Stuart Long, who found religion late in life and died two years ago at the age of 50.
“David O. Russell and I right now are working on developing a script on Father Stu, who was an amazing priest from Helena, Montana,” Wahlberg revealed in the video. “He was a very tough guy who was a fighter, a football player, anything but a spiritual guy. Then he found his calling, and decided, after falling in love with a woman, that he wanted to become a priest. He suffered from this horrible muscular degenerative disease but was still ordained as a priest and passed away, but not before he was able to inspire thousands upon thousands of people.”
He talks about the project about 14 minutes into this video, which over a million people have already sat through:
Wahlberg and Russell first worked together on the 1999 war film Three Kings, before reteaming in 2004 for I Heart Huckabees, thus commencing the prophetic cycle.