Seven Bucks Productions is developing a project based on the life of the legendary American professional wrestler Ric Flair, TheWrap can exclusively reveal. Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia will produce for Seven Bucks alongside Misher Films’ Kevin Misher, with whom they most recently collaborated with on MGM’s wrestling-themed “Fighting with My Family,” which starred Florence Pugh and Lena Headey.
One of the most celebrated professional wrestlers of all time, with a career spanning more than 50 years and virtually every major wrestling federation around the world, Flair is a 16-time world champion and the first wrestler to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame twice. He’s also a member of the NWA Hall of Fame, the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame.
“As a kid who grew up in professional wrestling, I idolized, ‘The Nature Boy’ Ric Flair,” Johnson said in a statement. “He was a hero to me. And once I broke into the wrestling business and began to spill my own sweat and blood – my reverence for Ric turned to respect. Because I realized just how rare and impossible it is to disrupt the wrestling business, culture and truly change the game – and that’s exactly what Ric Flair did. This project is personal, and we can’t wait to tell his unbelievable story. As always, thank you for the house, Ric.”
In the 1970s, Flair would adopt his flamboyant “Nature Boy” persona, which would eventually lead to him wrestling another wrestler named Buddy Rogers who had used the name earlier in the career. This, of course, led to the Battle of the Nature Boys in 1979. In 1991, Flair signed with what was then known as the World Wrestling Federation, where he achieved an unheard of level of exposure and success.
In April 1995 he had a match in North Korea (yes seriously) that garnered the largest crowds in professional wrestling history – 150,000 and 190,000. There is much to mine from this man’s life, including the fact that he’s still wrestling at the age of 74, currently signed to All Elite Wrestling.
Additionally, Johnson is currently producing and set to star in “Smashing Machine,” a biopic of Mark Kerr, the legendary MMA fighter from the wild west days of the UFC. Benny Safdie is writing and directing that project for A24.
Other upcoming Seven Bucks titles include the Christmas-themed “Red One,” an original idea by Seven Bucks’ Hiram Garcia, directed by Jake Kasdan and starring Johnson, Chris Evans, J.K. Simmons and Lucy Liu for Amazon; “Moana,” a live-action remake of the beloved Disney animated feature, directed by Thomas Kail from a script by Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller; and new installments in the “Fast and Furious” and “Jumanji” franchises.
Flair is represented by Alexy Posner of AP Brand Group.
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