Hulk Hogan by no means acquired the biopic remedy whereas he was alive.
The WWE legend, who died Thursday at age 71, was speculated to be performed by Chris Hemsworth in a Netflix film, however the undertaking was scrapped totally by the point Hogan handed away.
TMZ reported that the pro-wrestler died after “a cardiac arrest” name was positioned from his dwelling in Clearwater, Fla.
The biopic about Hogan was first introduced by Netflix in February 2019, with Hemsworth, 41, to star and Todd Phillips set to direct.
The Hollywood Reporter reported on the time that John Pollono and Scott Silver had been writing the script. Silver, 60, and Phillips, 54, co-wrote Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker,” which got here out that very same 12 months.
The biopic, per Deadline, was going to “center on the rise of Hogan, real name Terry Bollea, and his ‘Hulkamania’ both in wrestling and as a pop culture icon.”
The outlet additionally confirmed that Hogan’s life rights had been acquired within the deal and that he joined the undertaking as a advisor and govt producer.
Nevertheless, years glided by, and no progress was made on the movie, due partly to the COVID-19 pandemic inflicting manufacturing delays in Hollywood in 2020.
Hemsworth gave an replace on doubtlessly enjoying Hogan on the massive display screen in a June 2023 interview with Chris Van Vliet.
“Let’s hope. I don’t know what is happening with it at this point,” the “Thor” star said. “But there is a good story there I would love to tell.”
“I know Todd Phillips has been deep with The Joker and we have had conversations,” Hemsworth added. “Fingers crossed.”
A 12 months later, Phillips formally confirmed that the biopic was useless.
“I love what we were trying to do, but that’s not going to come together for me,” the director instructed Selection in August 2024 whereas selling “Joker 2.”
Throughout an look on the “PDB Podcast” in October 2024, Hogan defined why his biopic by no means got here to fruition.
“They kind of missed a beat in the contract. There was a payment that wasn’t placed at the right time,” he claimed 9 months earlier than his loss of life, including that the movie’s script “was amazing.”
“Scott Silver, who wrote the script for ‘Joker,’ ‘Wolf of Wall Street,’ a bunch of other movies, said, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever written,’” Hogan recalled. “When I read it, I went, ‘Oh my god, this is really good.’”
The “3 Ninjas” star continued: “At the time, I was in a space where I told him the positive stuff about wrestling and the negative stuff about wrestling. Spent about three years with this writer going back and forth. When I read it, it was just very, very dark, if that would be the right word. But it was probably what the public may want to see. When I read it I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, if this thing comes out …’”
“There was talk that Chris Hemsworth had never played a real person before and he could probably win an Oscar, this thing is so powerful,” Hogan added.
However Hogan defined that he was nervous the biopic would in the end be “the last thing people remember me for.”
“So I just was moving forward at the time, and when they business-wise missed a date, there was an option for me to pull out — and I did,” he revealed.
The sports activities icon stated on the time that he would nonetheless do the movie with the identical script, however acknowledged there’s different avenues to share his life story.
“There’s also documentary, a check and balance system, there’s also a four-hour block of TV like the OJ [Simpson] stuff to tell the real story,” Hogan famous.
“The check and balance system, what it did do was it took me right up to the time I turned bad guy. Until I turned into ‘Hollywood Hogan.’ So if this movie did blow through the roof that they expected it would, then there would be another one which would be really cool.”
Hogan additionally made it clear he wished “creative control” over his biopic and that the movie wanted to “be a balance.”
When the host requested Hogan if somebody might make a movie about him with out his permission, the WWE legend replied, “They can do it, but they could be in a really bad position legally if they don’t have me involved.”
“There’s so many hills and valleys when you do something without someone’s permission,” he added.
The Put up reached out to Netflix and Hemsworth for remark.
