The Lance Armstrong story is getting a renewed push to the big screen in the wake of the disgraced cyclist’s admission toOprah Winfrey this week that he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams‘ Bad Robot have secured the movie rights to the proposal for The New York Timessportswriter Juliet Macur‘s forthcoming book Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Macur covered cycling and Armstrong for the Times from his recovery from cancer through his seven Tour de France victories to the inquiries surrounding his use of PEDs.
HarperCollins pre-emptively snapped up the book project in November for a reported six-figure advance. Macur was repped by Janklow & Nesbit on the book deal.
Publication is scheduled for June.
Two other Armstrong-related projects were in the works but stalled late last year. One was to be based on his 2001 memoir It’s Not About the Bike.
Another project was being developed by Ed Pressman (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps).
Projects based on accounts from Armstrong’s accusers, notably former teammate Tyler Hamilton‘s The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs, also were being shopped but never sold.
This is the first project to be announced since Armstrong confessed to using PEDs during the Winfrey interview. The first part of the conversation aired Thursday night on OWN, drawing 3.2 million viewers. Part two airs Friday night.