Variety reports that Kurt Russell will reprise his role as a surly sports coach - which he played to perfection in 2004's Miracle - in Freedom Films' high-school football drama Touchback, which begins production this week in Michigan with director Don Handfield, who makes his feature debut.
Joining Russell are indie topliners Brian Presley (Home of the Brave), Christine Lahti (Obsessed), and Melanie Lynsky (Up in the Air). Presley stars as a "down-on-his-luck farmer and volunteer fireman whose promising high school football career was cut short when he was critically injured during a playoff game. He gets the chance to decide if he wants the life he has, or the life that could have been, when he's unexpectedly thrust back to that fateful instant that changed his life forever."
Enhancing Russel's character's authenticity is famed football coordinator Mark Ellis, whose Sports Studio is onboard to direct Touchback's game choreography. Ellis has lent his talents to a number of big-budget sports films, including The Rookie, We Are Marshall, and Invincible.
Russel's last film (that anyone remembers, anyway) is Quentin Tarantino's 2007 Death Proof, where he played the sinister Stuntman Mike. Touchback is the latest in a series of new projects that Russell has lined up recently, including Undying and Waco, with Adrien Brody and Sharon Stone.
Source: Variety