Boxing movies typically make the best sports movies. This past year, we saw Jake Gyllenhaal in the subpar Southpaw and Michael B. Jordan reach stardom in the wonderful Creed in theaters.

Yet Hollywood hasn’t produced that many great boxing movies portraying real-life fighters. Raging Bull (1980) told the Jake LaMotta story, The Fighter (2010) focused on Micky Ward and there are mixed feelings on Ali (2001), with Will Smith portraying the Greatest of All Time. Jeremy Renner hopes to join that list with an upcoming biopic about Rocky Marciano.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Renner — probably best known for playing Hawkeye in Marvel’s Avengers movies — is set to play the former heavyweight champion in a project titled Undefeated: The Rocky Marciano Story.

Marciano is the only heavyweight champion to retire without a loss, finishing his career with a perfect 49-0 record. Winning the championship from Jersey Joe Walcott, he held the title from 1952 to 1956, defending his belt six times. Marciano died in a plane crash in 1969, just before his 46th birthday.

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There have been other attempts at making Marciano’s story into a film, mostly recently a 1999 TV movie for Showtime starring Jon Favreau. But the boxer’s story has been told best to this point in documentaries, such as the ESPN SportsCentury film in 2000 and 2004’s Rocky Marciano: A Life Story, which was produced for PBS.

The Renner film will follow Marciano’s life from childhood to his death. That goes against the recent formula for successful biopics, which tend to focus on a specific period of the subject’s life rather than try to cram an entire life story into a two-hour frame. Samuel Franco and Evan Kilgore wrote the script for the project, and producers are currently seeking a director.

For Renner. playing Marciano provides an opportunity to headline a film. After being nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award in 2010 for his performance in 2009’s The Hurt Locker, Renner hasn’t quite found that star-making role. Taking over for Matt Damon in the Bourne franchise didn’t click with audiences, and if there were plans to have him eventually replace Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible series, that appears to have been shelved. A great performance as a revered boxer in a quality biopic could change all that.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

About Ian Casselberry

Ian is a writer, editor, and podcaster. You can find his work at Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He's written for Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation.