Jeremy Renner Puts On the Gloves for Rocky Marciano Biopic

There’s a new Rocky movie in development right now! No, no, no—not that Rocky. A different Rocky. The real-life Rocky. Known best for his undefeated heavyweight boxing career in the 1950s, Rocky Marciano was the inspiration for Rocky Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, who can currently be seen in Creed, which has pretty much been seen by everybody at this point.

Variety has reported that Jeremy Renner will be playing the famed fighter with a script from Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore, who wrote last year’s Blacklist script Mayday 109. The biopic will be over-appropriately named Undefeated: The Rocky Marciano Story and will cover everything from his childhood to his heavyweight boxing career. While his life was cut short in a plane crash, he left a huge mark on the boxing world, holding the heavyweight title from 1952 to 1956 and finishing his career with 49 wins, zero losses. 43 of his wins came from knockouts. He is the only heavyweight fighter to retire undefeated.

So, speaking of heavyweights, let’s talk about Jeremy Renner whose been more of a middleweight as far as acting. This will be Renner’s third leading role in recent years. He played Aaron Cross in The Bourne Legacy, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, and then Gary Webb in Kill The Messenger. Only one of the three had some weight—Kill The Messenger—and he turned in a solid performance for it.

But Aaron Cross and Hansel were generic roles in even more generic movies, and his recent run of supporting roles have really bottle-necked what he may be capable of. Playing William Brandt in the Mission Impossible 4 and 5 and Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe aren’t very demanding nor rewarding. In fact, they’re about as thin as tracing paper and bland as continuous stationary (that dull printer paper with the holes in the sides). Basically, the roles are just paper.

We forget how long it’s been (eight years!) since he convincingly played Staff Sergeant William James in The Hurt Locker, and in 2010 turned in one helluva performance as James “Jem” Coughlin, a short-fused Boston thug, in The Town—a performance and character that still gives me chills. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a performance of that caliber since. Until maybe, and hopefully, with this Rocky Marciano story. He’s a capable actor who needs a meaty role and the undefeated boxer may be exactly that. It’s still early days for the project though as it is still only in development and for now, we’ll have to see Renner as paper-Hawkeye in Captain America: Civil War due next year.