For a movie that isn’t even going to be released theatrically until Christmas Day, Concussion has already made incredible amounts of news. The Will Smith movie focuses on Dr. Bennet Omalu and his battle with the NFL, and it’s been the subject of a lot of media coverage already, from a disputed New York Times report in September that Sony altered the film to avoid antagonizing the NFL to Will Smith’s November comments that he doesn’t think the film will cause too much controversy to the decision this month to use actual NFL game footage in trailers.
Now, the coverage of Concussion itself is getting controversial, with Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr. alleging that the NYT has scrapped a piece on the film by some of its movie writers in favor of a critical article from sportswriter Ken Belson, who wrote the disputed September article.While Fleming’s allegations don’t seem to have been fully borne out yet, and may be going too far, they make for interesting reading and should have many observers keeping an eye on what the NYT does:
In a move that has created internal tension within the newspaper, a planned story has been scratched by its movie guys Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes about the David vs. Goliath battle between Dr. Bennet Omalu and the National Football League. Instead, the newspaper will run a critical article — I’ve heard it accuses the film of taking dramatic license in its depiction of the late Chicago Bears star Dave Duerson, whose suicide by shotgun blast to the chest (to preserve his brain for autopsy) is a plot point of the film.
The article, fueled by Duerson’s family, is being written by Ken Belson, the same Times sportswriter who authored a provocative and roundly disputed September 1 front-page story titled Sony Altered ‘Concussion’ Film To Prevent NFL Protests, Emails Show. The article used hacked Sony emails to fuel what turned out to be an unfounded allegation: that Sony and Concussion filmmakers softened their film in deference to the NFL. Many have seen the film since it premiered at AFI, including me. Belson’s assertions were wrong, and Sony Pictures movie chief Tom Rothman blasted the article in a recent discussion with ESPN’s Hannah Storm at the Paley Center.
It isn’t immediately clear whether the Arts section writers who cover Hollywood as their beats were called off the story or bailed after the Sports department won a turf battle to make a second critical story the newspaper’s priority. A NYT spokeswoman said, “We don’t comment on what may or may not appear in future editions of The Times.” Sony also declined comment. I’m told this has created internal rancor within the newspaper and it raises the question of why Belson and the sports section seem so bent on discrediting a film when its first article was misguided.
Fleming goes on to discuss the complicated saga of the NYT and the material in Concussion. The paper led the way on much of the early reporting of CTE and the NFL’s response to it, driven by the superb work of Alan Schwarz, but Schwarz sold the film rights to those articles to a rival project from New Regency that’s apparently now in the works as a miniseries (with heavy involvement from David Fincher, director of The Social Network and Gone Girl). Instead, IMDB states that Concussion is based off one of the other prominent articles on CTE, Omalu, and the NFL: Jeanne Marie Laskas’ 2009 GQ feature “Game Brain.” It’s written (in conjunction with Laskas) and directed by Peter Landesman, though, who worked for The New York Times Magazine before getting into Hollywood (and actually started in movies as a screenwriter on projects based on his NYT articles). So, the paper’s heavily connected to this film on several fronts.
As for the merits of Fleming’s specific allegations about the spiking of the planned piece from the Times‘ movie section in favor of a Belson-helmed attack on the film, it’s going to be hard to judge those until we see what the NYT does. As of 4:30 p.m. Eastern Monday, neither of those pieces appears to have been published; a “Concussion” search of articles published at nytimes.com within the last 24 hours produces articles about Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton and a variety of NFL concussions, but nothing on the film.
If the paper does elect to go with a Belson article, his previous writing on the film absolutely should be considered by readers. However, it’s worth noting that his September piece isn’t as clearly invalid as Fleming claims. Landesman and Sony didn’t dispute that the edits occurred, but only argued that they were typical of movies based on real-life events, and made for accuracy and legal reasons rather than a fear of the NFL. There was also notable news value to that story; internal discussions of how Concussion filmmakers and executives viewed the NFL are very relevant to the public.
Moreover, our advance review of the film from Brad Gagnon discusses how it takes a lighter line on the NFL and football than some might expect. That would seem to back up some of Belson’s writing. Other advance reviews have been more lukewarm than fully positive, too. (Interestingly enough, one of the most positive reviews, and one most convinced that the movie went after the NFL as hard as it should, comes from Deadline’s own Pete Hammond. Maybe they’ll have their own internal drama.) The degree to which a film like Concussion should stick entirely to the facts rather than dramatization and the degree to which it should criticize the NFL both are matters of opinion; there isn’t necessarily an easy answer here.
Fleming’s tale of internal NYT drama over Concussion is certainly interesting, but it isn’t necessarily all that out of the norm, either. There often are turf wars between departments at any paper (or any media outlet, for that matter), especially with subjects like this film that encompass news, sports and arts. If Belson’s article is published and turns out to be an unfounded hit piece, and if the paper refuses to run more positive coverage of the film in the arts section (or refuses to cover it as a film in general), then we have a journalism controversy. However, it’s far too soon to say we have one right now. It’s going to be interesting to see how the NYT covers Concussion, and Fleming’s report will have plenty of observers watching them closely, but it seems to be jumping to conclusions right now to say the paper has it in for the film.
