For Immediate Release (January 21, 2010)— Producer John Edmonds Kozma (Nick Cassavetes’ Kentucky Rhapsody) has announced plans to turn the life of legendary boxing trainer and manager Lou Duva into a feature film.
“We’ve seen a lot of great films about fighters in the past,” says Kozma. “Whether about real-life legends like Jake LaMotta or Muhammed Ali, or fictional characters like Rocky Balboa, Hollywood has always focused on the guy in the ring. I thought it would be a great slant on the genre if we told the story through the eyes of someone who lived through it, and observed it, for over 80 years. Lou’s literally a walking history book…and has a million colorful tales to tell.”
Duva, now 87, began his boxing career as an amateur fighter in 1932 at the age of ten. Over the span of the next eight decades, Duva would go on to promote such groundbreaking bouts as Sugar Ray Leonard/Tommy Hearns I (at that time the largest grossing non-heavyweight fight in history, grossing more than $40 million) and handle the development of boxing giants such as Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Hector “Macho” Camacho, and Pernell Whittaker. He also ran with such show biz icons as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Also on board as producer is Richard O’Sullivan (The Teacher, One Night with You) and scripted by noted playwright and boxing historian Daniel Chernau.
Tentative release of the film is slated for early 2012.
