Redford Baseball Movie Has a Writer and Director

Robert Redford has been trying to get a film about baseball great Jackie Robinson together for a while now.  It seems the film has taken a giant leap forward.  The Los Angeles Times is reporting that screenwriter Brian Helgeland (Mystic River, L.A Confidential) will both write and direct the untitled film.

Redford would play Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who discovered and signed Jackie Robinson.  There is no word on who will play the great Robinson.

The film will follow the complex relationship between Rickey and Robinson and focus on the color barrier in basball in the 1940s.

"No one really knows the Rickey part, the political maneuvers and the partnership they had to share," Redford told the newspaper. "It's the story underneath the story you thought you knew."

Still sounds like the film is in its early stages, but it's well on its way.