We have big news people! As of late last month a new film started shooting in Rio de Janeiro. Directed by two brothers, Michael and Jeff Zimbalist, it will tell the life story of the Brazilian soccer craque Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a.k.a Pele.
The Zimbalist brothers are hoping to have the movie, simply titled Pele, open in theaters right before next year’s World Cup. Focusing on Pele’s childhood it will chronicle his journey as a poor kid growing up in Minas Gerais, to playing professionally at the tender age of 15, to joining the Brazilian national team, and winning his first World Cup in 1958 at age 17.
He still holds a ton of records from that tournament. He was the youngest person on the field at the time and remains the youngest person to have scored a goal during a World Cup, the youngest person to achieve a hat trick in a World Cup and the youngest to have won the World Cup trophy.
Leonardo Lima Carvalho will play the young Pele and Kevin de Paula, a soccer player, will play him as a teenager. The rest of the cast includes: Seu Jorge as Dondinho (Pele’s dad), Vincent D’Onofrio as Vicente Feola (the national team’s coach) and Marianna Nunes, Milton Goncales, Rafael Henrique, Marcus Vinicius, Julio Levy, Thelmo Fernandes, Felipe Simas, Charles Myara, Jerome Franz and Roger Haag.
We have high hopes for Pele, the movie. There aren’t enough Latino biopics out there and we have lots of heroes who deserve a film. A while back we put together a list of 10 Latinos that Should have Biopics. Who are we missing?
(We mention the lack of a Cesar Chavez biopic but one is now in the works.)