A movie is set to be made about one of the Upstate’s most famous baseball players: Shoeless Joe Jackson.
The production company that’s making the movie was in Greenville Saturday looking for extras for the movie at the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum.
“The story is just so compelling, and it draws so many people in and creates so much love and devotion for Joe and support for him and his career and everything he went through in his life and its just a very intriguing story and I think that’s a common thread,” said film producer Renee James.
Screenwriter Angelo Pizzo, writer of such movies as Rudy and Hoosiers has been hired to write the film.
“Immediately, I was intrigued,” said Pizzo. “There’s a bit of a mystery about who Shoeless Joe was, what he represented, a kind of innocence of America at the turn of the century. and of course the scandal and yet there was something about the scandal itself that I wasn’t clear on and I don’t think anybody is clear on is how culpable was he? I would like to tell the story to people who know nothing about this and make them want to see what happens next.”
Billy Bob Thornton is an executive producer for the project.
The movie is in pre-production and no release date has been announced.
For more information on the project, visit their website shoelessjoeproductions.com.
