It’s been widely reported that the saga of former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, ESPN-broadcaster-turned-senate-candidate Craig James, and his son Adam will figure into the next iteration of Friday Night Lights, an eagerly anticipated movie that will pick up where the television show finished.
And, well, there’s also not much doubt where FNL executive producer Peter Berg stands on that issue.
In an interview with Details, Berg, who became friendly with Leach after giving him a cameo in the show’s fourth season, says that he:
…really studied that entire situation—[Leach] getting fired and the accusations made against him by Adam James, and the pressure that his father, Craig James, put on Leach, using his ESPN bully pulpit. Craig James is a f—ing scumbag, helicopter dad—and everything wrong with the culture I observed in Texas.
The online article, an outtake from Mickey Rapkin’s Q&A with Berg in the May 2012 issue of Details, also features actress Connie Britton, aka Friday Night Lights‘ Tami Taylor.
Britton told Rapkin and Berg she’d just met with FNL writer Jason Katims, who showed her all the 3×5 cards he’s been working on.
“That’s the movie,” Katims said.
Britton then joked, “I’d better have a good part in it!” (“F— off,” Berg joked in reply) and “You’d better get Kyle Chandler on board” (“we’ve got him,” Berg said of Coach Taylor).
Berg, whose new movie Battleship (starring Taylor “Tim Riggins” Kitsch) comes out May 18, also said that Friday Night Lights‘ appeal transcends both Texas and America.
Here’s the crazy thing—I’ve been traveling around the world for Battleship. And Taylor Kitsch has been traveling around the world for John Carter. I mean, literally around the world. London, Paris, Germany, Spain, Moscow, Tokyo, Korea, Mexico City, Australia. For real. All those places. Everywhere we go we’re talking about Battleship and John Carter, but all they want to talk about is the Friday Night Lights movie. Everywhere. Even in f—ing Korea! Taylor is like, “It’s just f—ing ridiculous.”
