Jake Gyllenhaal has signed on to play the Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath in the upcoming biopic for Universal Pictures. The movie will chronicle Joe’s rise from golden-armed kid to 1960s cultural icon star quarterback and his rock star life. While other quarterbacks racked up bigger lifetime stats and one more championships, Namath was known as the nonconformist socialite known as Broadway Joe, who would sit on the sidelines wearing a full-length fur coat.
In one of Namath’s most memorable moments, he guaranteed an upset victory in 1969’s Super Bowl III, when his team the Jets played the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts – Namath delivered on his promise in a move that paved the way to a merger and helped establish football as a TV sport.
Gyllenhaal is currently shooting the Jim Sheridan-directed Brothers with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman and will next team with Doug Liman on an untitled DreamWorks project that about a moon expedition.