Heroes of bodybuilding to receive biopic treatment…
Brad Furman (‘Runner Runner,’ ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’) has signed on to take writing and directing duties for ‘Bigger,’ a biopic of Canadian bodybuilding icon Joe Weider and his brother Ben who together co-founded the International Federation of BodyBuilding and created the Mr. Olympia competition.
Furman will base the biopic on the duo’s 2006 memoir, ‘Brothers of Iron,’ which is officially described as follows:
“In the depths of the Great Depression a scrawny, dirt-poor Jewish kid with a seventh-grade education picked up a barbell and got hooked on weight training. Building his muscles gave him confidence and hope for a better life. He pledged to make the great, transforming power of strength training available to everyone and to give bodybuilding all the glory it deserved. The kid, Joe Weider, enlisted his younger brother Ben in his quest, and together the Weider brothers accomplished things much bigger than Joe’s boyhood dreams.
The little muscle magazine Joe started, working at his family’s dining room table, grew into a publishing empire. From a backyard barbell business, Joe and Ben built equipment and food supplement companies each as big as Weider Publishing. And they transformed bodybuilding into a hugely successful sport, organized under one of the largest and best-run athletic federations in the world.”
Steve Lee Jones (‘You Don’t Know Jack,’ ‘We Regret to Inform You’) of Bee Holder Productions is on board to produce with Eric Weider (‘Generation Iron’) serving as executive producer.