Glen Powell will star as New York Yankees legend Lou Gehrig in an upcoming biopic directed by Richard Linklater. The currently untitled project is set up at Universal Pictures, with Simon Rich writing the screenplay.
The announcement marks a reunion for Powell and Linklater, who previously collaborated on the 2016 college baseball comedy Everybody Wants Some!! and the 2024 Netflix film Hit Man. Their latest partnership returns the pair to baseball with one of the sport’s most iconic and tragic figures.
Lorne Michaels, the longtime Saturday Night Live producer and a devoted Yankees fan, will produce the film alongside Erin David through Broadway Video’s first-look deal with Universal. Powell will also produce with Dan Cohen via his Barnstorm banner, which maintains its own first-look arrangement at the studio. Linklater is in talks to produce through Detour Filmproduction.
Lou Gehrig spent his entire 17-year Major League career with the Yankees, earning the nickname “The Iron Horse” for his extraordinary durability. He played in a then-record 2,130 consecutive games, a streak that stood until Cal Ripken Jr. broke it more than five decades later. A seven-time All-Star and the 1934 Triple Crown winner, Gehrig was a cornerstone of the vaunted 1927 Yankees lineup known as “Murderers’ Row” and helped the franchise capture six World Series titles.
His career came to an abrupt end in 1939 following a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the progressive disease that would later bear his name. On July 4 of that year, Gehrig delivered one of baseball’s most enduring speeches at Yankee Stadium, telling the capacity crowd, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” He died in 1941 at the age of 37.
The only previous major feature film focused on Gehrig was the 1942 classic The Pride of the Yankees, which starred Gary Cooper and earned multiple Academy Award nominations. The new project is expected to examine aspects of Gehrig’s life and career with fresh perspective. Sources indicate that Babe Dahlgren, the player who replaced Gehrig at first base, may figure prominently in the story.
No production start date has been announced. Powell, who has maintained a busy schedule in recent years, plans to take time off before beginning work on the role. He is currently completing the second season of the Hulu series Chad Powers and has additional projects lined up, including Judd Apatow’s The Comeback King for Universal and J.J. Abrams’ The Great Beyond.
Rich, a former Saturday Night Live writer whose recent credits include the Sam Altman biopic Artificial, is handling the script. The combination of Powell’s rising profile, Linklater’s distinctive directorial approach, and Michaels’ producing involvement positions the film as a significant entry in the sports biopic genre.
For baseball historians and film audiences alike, the project offers a rare opportunity to revisit one of the game’s most consequential figures through a modern lens.
