Austin Butler is reportedly set to play Lance Armstrong in an upcoming biopic—but not just any Lance Armstrong. This will be the fully approved and authorized Lance, as the disgraced cycling champion has (per Deadline) officially signed off on the life rights to a new film about the highs—Winning bike races! Beating cancer! Little rubber bracelets!—and lows (multiple full Wikipedia pages about cheating at those bike races) of Armstrong’s career.
The film hasn’t landed at a studio yet, but is reportedly provoking a bit of a bidding war, with not just Butler attached, but also Conclave director Edward Berger and King Richard screenwriter Zach Baylin. The whole package has been assembled by producers Nick Nesbit and Scott Stuber, with the latter having apparently put in many years of work to talk Armstrong into allowing a warts-and-all approach to the material of his life. (Armstrong notably did not sign off on Stephen Frears’ 2015 The Program, which saw Ben Foster play a version of the cyclist based on David Walsh’s 2012 book Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit Of Lance Armstrong.)
Butler and Berger have been in business together for a minute at this point; in 2024, it was reported that the Elvis actor had signed on to star in Berger’s upcoming science-fiction film The Barrier. (Still reportedly in pre-production; it’s not clear how the Armstrong film might affect those plans.) Butler most recently popped up in theaters last year with Eddington and Caught Stealing, showcasing both his talent for playing charismatic, manipulative dirtbags and desperate but likable underdogs, at least one of which will presumably serve him in good stead in this new Armstrong movie. No word on anybody else who might appear in the film yet, but this does feel like a heck of an opportunity for anybody in Hollywood who has a really solid Oprah or Sheryl Crow kicking around in their back pocket.