Concussion director disputes report that scenes were cut to appease NFL

Following Tuesday’s New York Times report that Sony Pictures decided to alter scenes in its upcoming film Concussion to prevent antagonizing the NFL, director Peter Landesman disputed that his movie made any such compromises.

The film follows the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu (played by Will Smith), the forensic pathologist who first discovered degenerative brain disease, known as CTE, in football players who had suffered head trauma from the violent contact of the sport.

“We always intended to make an entertaining, hard-hitting film about Dr. Omalu’s David-and-Goliath story, which played out like a Hollywood thriller,” Landesman told the Associated Press. “Anyone who sees the movie will know that it never once compromises the integrity and the power of the real story.”

Well, OK — but that isn’t exactly a denial, is it?

The NYT report cited emails revealed in last November’s Sony hack between studio executives, Landesman and representatives for Smith that discussed possible changes that could be made to the movie’s script. One suggestion was to focus on individuals who tried to deny or cover up knowledge of traumatic brain injuries to players, rather than condemn the NFL as a whole. Another was to make sure the movie was more about Omalu and his whistle-blowing, instead of a criticism of football.

In addition, possible marketing strategies were mentioned, including taking steps to mention that Smith liked football and one of his sons played the sport. To make a finer point, Smith isn’t taking on any sort of role as a spokesperson against football, but was intrigued by the challenge of portraying a different sort of character than he’s played before.

As Landesman said in the NYT article and to the AP, those suggestions don’t mean his film compromised its intent to tell a particular story. And it’s certainly possible that some dramatic or character moments were combed out of the script to make sure the movie stuck to the facts, while the objective of the story stays on point.

But people — whether it’s movie fans, sports fans or commentators — don’t want to hear that any changes were made to appease the NFL. How can the movie be trusted if there’s any sort of perception that the league exerted any kind of influence over its content, even if indirectly?

So Landesman (who has one studio film, 2013’s Parkland, on his résumé) is obviously in damage control mode here, trying to stuff this particular narrative. But with nearly four months before Concussion opens in theaters, he and Sony Pictures will probably have to work even harder to make a convincing argument that it’s not kowtowing to the big, bad NFL.

[Associated Press]