For a while now, director Curtis Hanson (8 Mile, LA Confidential) has been working on Mavericks, a biopic of famed surfer Jay Moriarty. When it was first announced, Sean Penn was interested in playing Moriarty’s mentor, Rick ‘Frosty’ Hesson, but not that part has gone to someone very different, Gerard Butler.
According to Variety, Butler will play the man who for over a year trained a teenaged Moriarty to take on one of the most infamous surfing spots in the world, Mavericks in California, a place known for its jagged underwater rocks and swells that can reach as high as a five storey building. Moriarty is famed among big wave surfers as much for his attitude as for his skills. he started surfing at the age of 11 and became one of the sport’s best known names by the end of his teens (partly because of fame he got from a spectacular wipeout, which was caught on film). Tragically though, he drowned in a free free-diving accident in the Maldives when he was only 22.
Hanson is now looking for a young actor to play Moriarty.