Rob Zombie's ... Hockey Movie?

[HighFivingMF]

EXCLUSIVE: Rob Zombie will write, direct and produce Broad Street Bullies, a film about the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team that evolved from a cellar dwelling expansion team into a team that racked up victories and penalty minutes in equal measure during the 70s. Zombie, known for his head-banging music before transitioning to genre films like House of 1000 Corpses and Halloween, is making a departure with this film, sort of, because the Flyers brutal style of play is genre-worthy and has the makings for a hockey film on the order of the 1977 sports film classic Slap Shot.

The physical play of the Flyers was legendary, to the point that when they played the Soviet Union’s supposedly invincible and tough Red Army team, the Flyers roughed them up so badly that the Russian team left the ice in the first period, and only returned when told they would not get paid if they didn’t. The Flyers won the game 4-1, with head coach Fred Shero proclaiming, “Yes we are world champions. If they had won, they would have been world champions. We beat the hell out of a machine.” Despite being known as Freddy’s Philistines because of the work of enforcers like Dave Schultz, the Flyers had skilled players like Bobby Clarke and won back to back Stanley Cup championships in two-fisted fashion. Their exploits were captured in the HBO docu Broad Street Bullies.

Zombie got the rights to the team’s story, and has the full support of the Flyers organization. He likened the tone of the tale to Rocky meets Boogie Nights on ice. “Each character involved is more outrageous than the next,” Zombie said. “The backdrop of the turbulent year of 1974 is perfect for this ‘stranger than fiction’ sports tale.”

Former Flyers great and team senior vice president Clarke is appropriately stoked. “The great Rob Zombie making a drama feature film about the Broad Street Bullies is exciting and thrilling for all of us! I look forward to seeing it.”

Zombie will produce with Andy Gould, Les Borsai and Jeremy Platt. They are tying down the financing and hope to drop the puck on this one shortly. Zombie is in post production on his genre film The Lords of Salem, which is produced by Haunted Movies, the partnership between Paranormal Activity’s Jason Blum, Steven Schneider and Oren Peli along with Brian Kavanaugh-Jones of Automatik.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/rob...for-feature-broad-street-bullies/#more-288698

 

[Octoberist]

You know what? You can't blame him for proactively wanting to branch out. Good for Rob.

 

[TheOnlyOmega]

Looking forward to this. I'm sure Rob can make the hockey scenes look brutal, very interested in this project.

 

[HighFivingMF]

You know what? You can't blame him for proactively wanting to branch out. Good for Rob.

Word. I've loved all of his movies, but I'm not too well-versed in hockey other than what my friend tells me and she hates the Flyers. So I'll probably be a bit lost. I'll have her on-hand for Kevin Smith's Hit Somebody though!

Hopefully the team Captain is Captain Spaulding.

 

[Assassin32]

Not a big hockey fan, but this sounds awesome. "Rocky meets Boogie Nights." Hell yeah.

 

[bullets]

It wil be interesting to see what he does with this.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

Didn't HBO Sports already make this movie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_Bullies_(film)

 

[TheOnlyOmega]

Didn't HBO Sports already make this movie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_Bullies_(film)

It is a documentary. I assume this will be a more cinematic and theatrical than a sports doc.

 

[Shifty]

Didn't HBO Sports already make this movie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_Bullies_(film)

That was just old men reminiscing with archive footage, great documentary but with what they're aiming the film to be should be great.

 

[Matt]

Aww, I saw the title and thought we were finally getting an adaptation of Mutant League Hockey.

 

[Octoberist]

I heard that the documentaries on Zombie's Halloween DVD are amazing. Is that true?

 

[DoomsdayApex]

I'll watch.

 

[Man in the Suit]

I heard that the documentaries on Zombie's Halloween DVD are amazing. Is that true?

Yeah. It's 4 hours long, but stuff is always happening. It's just a camera rolling behind the scenes with some little interviews.

The making of The Devil's Rejects is really good too.

 

[Matt Mortem]

I say bravo to Zombie for branching out. A non-horror film is exactly what he needs to do. Looking forward to it.