After going through a myriad of title changes, it looks like Stephen Frears has settled on The Program for his forthcoming biopic on cyclist Lance Armstrong. While it’s taken quite some time for the Ben Foster-led film to get completed and have a festival premiere, it’ll finally arrive this fall in some countries (and a likely TIFF bow, if we had to take an educated guess), and today brings the first trailer.
“In terms of how he conducted his behavior, he’s discussed how he’s made his mistakes, and whether or not he can make good on them now is not for me to decide. In terms of his athletic ability, there aren’t many like him. That’s a combination of focus,” Foster said last year. “It’s as much will as being a physical body. He’s one of the greatest athletes that’s ever lived. He came up in a time of doping, and it’s my opinion, if you look at the statistics, you have to go down 17 or 18 guys for those seven years retroactively, at least, to find a clean rider. So it wasn’t EPO [Erythropoietin] that made Lance the greatest cyclist. It was something far bigger. How he handled that ability, how he handled his will, that story’s not over yet.”
Also starring Lee Pace, Chris O’Dowd, Dustin Hoffman, and Jesse Plemons, check out the trailer below (with a hat tip to The Playlist) and we’ll update when an English-language version arrives.
Update: See the official U.K. trailer and poster below.
He was one of the biggest sports heroes of our time: Lance Armstrong has revolutionized in the nineties with his team the sport of cycling, he won seven times alone in the Tour de France. With his fight against cancer, he became the charismatic icon of millions. But then the truth of his success is revealed: The sports journalist David Walsh covers a system of lies and cheating on … After “The Queen”, director Stephen Frears focuses again a cult figure of the present and shows how close greatness and megalomania often to each other. A fascinating portrait with US actor Ben Foster as Armstrong worthy of an Oscar occupied.
The Program will likely arrive this fall around its October 8th release in Germany.