:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/44255948/Screen_Shot_2014-12-01_at_9.58.27_AM.0.0.png)
Well - there's nothing more tangentially related to real boxing than...fake boxing! That, combined with little other to talk about today, brings me to inform you about the new upcoming boxing flick "Southpaw." It features Jake Gyllenhaal as (fictional) junior middleweight champion, Billy "The Great" Hope. I won't get too much into any allusions to the term "Great White Hope" here but I think its safe to say the character was carefully crafted. I don't even mention that as any race baiting discussion either, it's just that the plot of the movie is apparently about a lefty boxer who fights his way to redemption after tragedy strikes, and thus the reference to the term is pretty unmistakeable - not to mention pretty unoriginal in that regard.
Anyway, as depicted in the photo above, this actually represents one of the most noticeable physical transformations I've seen since Tom Hardy portrayed Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises." And speaking of Tom Hardy, if this movie comes anywhere close to his 2011 film "Warrior" -- one of the most dramatic fight films I've ever seen -- it should definitely be worth a watch.
Director Antoine Fuqua had the following to say about Jake's commitment to the role:
"Two people have done this in their lives - Robert De Niro in Raging Bull and Denzel Washington in The Hurricane. Those kinds of guys are rare."
"I had him training twice a day in the boxing ring. He did two-a-days seven days a week. I pretty much had him with me and my trainer every day. I took him to almost every fight. I had him train at Floyd Mayweather's gym in Vegas and we watched Floyd's fights and the Manny Pacquiao fight. He trained in New York at Church Gym with real fighters. We literally turned him into a beast. Jake, my God, he's a very electric, powerful fighter in this movie and a guy who fights for his daughter. I'm confident that this will change how people see Jake, as a leading man."
No official release date for this film as of yet, but it likely will be released in theaters sometime in 2015.