Sportsman Jim Thorpe in Running for Movie
April 29, 2004By ANDREW WALLENSTEIN
Hollywood Reporter
NEW YORK - Sports legend Jim Thorpe will serve as the focus of "Carlisle School," a feature film to be written by John Sayles.
The Walden Media project follows a ragtag group of young Native Americans whose victories on the football field lead them to national prominence. The players, among them future sports legend Thorpe, attended the boarding school in Pennsylvania that, from 1879-1918, housed Native Americans from childhood through college.
Thorpe won both the pentathlon and decathlon events at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. In the same year, he led his school team to the national collegiate championship. He later went on to play six years of Major League Baseball.
Sayles wrote—and directed—such films as "Passion Fish," "Lone Star," "Limbo" and the upcoming political satire "Silver City."
Walden Media is a family-oriented production company funded by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz. Its credits include "Holes" and the upcoming "Around the World in 80 Days."
