Kurt Russell to Join Brian Presley in High-School Football Flick: Touchback
By Buzzfocus Staff // August 3, 2010
Topics: Casting and Film & Movies
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Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China star Kurt Russell is hanging up his bad-boy-cult-action-hero status to play a high school football coach in Don Handfield’s Touchback. Although fans have seen Russell in a multitude of roles throughout his career, seeing him in anything that doesn’t involve guns and explosions always seems odd. Touchback is more of a feel-good film. Brian Presley stars an ex-high-school football star who has a chance to go back in time to relive his glory days and choose fame over mediocrity.
Official Release:
Grand Rapids, MI (August 3, 2010) Freedom Films named Kurt Russell as the head high-school football coach in Writer/Director Don Handfield’s Touchback, which stars Brian Presley (Home of the Brave), Melanie Lynskey as his wife, (Up in the Air, The Informant, Sweet Home Alabama) and Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Christine Lahti as his mother (Obsessed, Smart People). Marc Blucas (Knight and Day, The Jane Austin Book Club, First Daughter), Drew Powell (Straw Dogs, 1408), Sarah Wright (The House Bunny), Sianoa Smit-McPhee (Hung) and Kevin Covais (College, Labor Pains) also star. Filming on Touchback begins this week in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area.
Handfield and Freedom Films are thrilled to have Mr. Russell come aboard in the role of “Coach Hand.” “I am thrilled he responded to the material. He is an icon and brings a unique warmth, charm and strength to the character. I feel blessed to be working with such a legendary actor on my first film,” said Handfield.
Touchback marks Don Handfield’s feature directorial debut. “Don is a creative force, passionate, smart, and Freedom couldn’t be more pleased to embark on the journey of making this film with him,” states Presley who is also producing with Lisa Kearns of Freedom Films, Kevin Matusow, Carissa Buffel-Matusow, and George Furla.
Also joining the film is renowned football coordinator Mark Ellis of Sports Studio. Ellis has worked on many major sports action films of the past two decades including: We Are Marshall, Invincible, The Rookie, The Longest Yard and Miracle, which re-teams Ellis with Russell. Touchback also reunites Russell and Lahti for the first time since Swing Shift.
In Touchback, “Murphy,” played by Brian Presley, is a down-on-his-luck small town farmer and volunteer fireman whose glorious high school football days were cut short when he was critically injured during a playoff game. He often wonders “what if” and then is unexpectedly thrust from the present day back to that fateful instant that changed his life forever. But this time around “Murphy” has the choice to decide if he wants the life he has or the life that could have been.
Touchback is the first movie to go into production under a three-picture deal between Freedom Films and financier Palo Verde, a hedge fund founded in 2008 by Paul Ross & Tony Stacy. Presley is represented by Adam Griffin at Kritzer Levine Wilkins Griffin Entertainment.
http://www.buzzfocus.com/2010/08/03/kurt-russell-to-join-brian-presley-in-high-school-football-flick-touchback/
