Seabiscuit just got some steeper competition. ‘Secretariat,’ currently in pre-production for a 2010 release from Walt Disney Pictures, has added three more actors to a cast that already boasts Diane Lane (Nights In Rodanthe). The Hollywood Reporter states that Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck), John Malkovich (Burn After Reading) and Scott Glenn (W.) have signed on to the film centering on the owner of the famous thoroughbred racehorse that captured the United States Triple Crown in 1973.
Malkovich will play the horse’s trainer Lucien Laurin. Glenn plays Ogden Phipps, the thoroughbred owner/breeder who famously lost the hall of fame racehorse in a coin toss while Walsh plays husband to Lane’s Penny Tweedy – also known as “the first lady of racing” – Secretariat’s owner.
While selling a film about horse racing might seem like a stretch, the aforementioned Seabiscuit managed to earn $120 million plus at the box office. By throwing in a more recognizable subject and a few of Hollywood’s more notable actors, this project should undoubtedly find its legs, thoroughbred-like or not. Still no word on who will play the title character, though.
