Casting Call: Harrison Ford To Play Famed Baseball Exec Branch Rickey In Jackie Robinson Film

It’s a home run for Legendary Pictures – the studio has nabbed Harrison Ford to play famed Major League Baseball executive Branch Rickey in their upcoming Jackie Robinson biopic.

“Ford will star as Branch Rickey, the innovative Major League Baseball executive who is best known for breaking MLB’s color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson to a minor league contract in 1945,” Legendary said in a statement released on Friday. “Two years later, at the start of the 1947 major league baseball season, Robinson was signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers major league baseball team with the help of Rickey. Rickey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967.”

As for who will play Robinson, Chadwick Boseman, a relative newcomer best known for his role in Universal Pictures’ “The Express,” has been tapped to play the baseball icon.

Brian Helgeland, whose many screenwriting credits include “L.A. Confidential,” “Mystic River” and “Man on Fire,” will write and direct the as of yet untitled project, while Jon Jashni, Legendary’s President and Chief Creative Officer, will serve as executive producer.

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