Daniel Radcliffe is getting his running shoes on as he’s signed up for Gold, where he’ll play legendary British runner, Sebastian Coe. The movie will reunite him with The Woman In Black director, James Watkins.
The movie has been in development for quite a while, as originally the hope was to get it in cinemas to coincide with the London Olympics. They’ve missed that date by a wide mark, but things are now moving ahead with Radcliffe as Coe, in a film that will look at the athlete’s rivalry with felloe middle-distance runner Steve Ovett.
The rivalry was at time cordial and sometimes fierce, and saw them fighting it out for Olympic medals, such as at the 1980 Moscow games, when Ovett beat Coe in his favoured 800m event, while Coe beat Ovett is the latter’s preferred 1,500m. In 1981 they also traded world records for the fastest mile ever three times in 10 days, with Coe as one point holding the 800m, 1,500m and mile records, while Ovett later took over the 1,500m and mile records.
Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) and Will Davies (How to Train Your Dragon) wrote the script based on The Perfect Distance by Pat Butcher. Shooting it expected to start next April.