HBO planning miniseries on Richard Ford's The Sportswriter

From Variety:

HBO Films will turn a Pulitzer Prize-winning book trilogy by Richard Ford into "The Sportswriter," a six-hour miniseries to be directed by James Mangold.

Mark Bomback will write all six hourlong episodes and use all three titles in the trilogy: "The Sportswriter," the Pulitzer-winning "Independence Day" and "The Lay of the Land."

 

Who plays the part of Loopy?

 

Linda Hunt?

 

I read The Sportswriter and Independence Day.
I kept reading, hoping something interesting would happen soon. It never really did.
I guess the charm of the books is that they're well-written and get inside the head of some ordinary dude with middle-aged white-guy problems and dreams. And that is supposed to be interesting for some.
I can't imagine how it translates to a movie. Lots of voice-over narration probably.
If anybody thinks these books are great, I'd be interested in hearing why.

 

agreed. on all counts.

 

Having seen the miniseries version of Empire Falls, I want to think good things about this project.

Who plays the lead? Can we cast it here?

 

I'll second that. I liked the first one, struggled to finish Independence Day and haven't really considered reading the third one.

 

this is why you're the best

 

Perhaps the most boring, well-written, highly-praised trilogy ever written: The Sportswriter, Independence Day, The Lay of The Land.

A much better short story guy that a novelist, in my opinion.

 

Better this than the plan, announced yesterday, for HBO to do a mini-series based on Stephen King's and Stewart O'Nan's book Faithful, on the '04 Red Sox, easily one of the worst sports book ever published. All I can envision are King and O'Nan, throwing random words on a page, laughing hysterically as their editor throws money back at them and says "Brilliant." And now they get to do it again as HBO throws even MORE money at them for a book they "wrote" while sitting on the can writing e-mails on a laptop while their editor groveled.

And I second the notions expressed above about Ford's long fiction. It has always left me completely cold and unaffected, it has neither been neither enjoyable or even made me feel challenged. I've never felt an ounce of empathy for anyone he writes about, or any connection to the way he writes about them. Must not just be me.

 

Sirs, Madames,

I liked Independence Day the best of the three, but I'm good with all three. I can see sportswriters not liking the first novel because it might miss something of the day-to-day. Emotionally, I thought it was close to bone. Someone conflicted about his job (rather than his work) and his life. who mines other people's heartbreak, not his own. The arc of Frank's life--or at least his thinking--is too similar to my own.

YHS, etc