Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series highlighting awards season’s buzziest movies continues with The Fire Inside, the boxing drama directed by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison in her feature helming debut from a script from Oscar-winning Moonlight screenwriter Barry Jenkins.
The Amazon MGM Studios movie hit theaters on Christmas Day after having its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. It has looking at a $4.3 million gross across the five-day holiday frame.
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The movie follows the true story of Claressa Shields (played by Ryan Destiny), the Flint, Michigan high schooler who with the help of her trainer Jason Crutchfield (played by Oscar-nominated Brian Tyree Henry) rose to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in women’s boxing, going on to win multiple world titles to become one of the most decorated boxers of all time. The focus of her rise is their strong relationship. Jazmin Headley and Kylee D. Allen also star.
“This is an inspirational sports movie until it becomes an inspirational life movie,” Morrison said during an appearance with Destiny and Henry last month at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles. “The heart of it is the life part. A lot of it outside the ring is telling his side of the story too.”
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For playing Shields, Destiny, a singer whose previous acting credits include the Fox series Star, has been nominated for Breakthrough Performer at the Gotham Awards and for Best Lead Performance at the Independent Spirit Awards. Henry, an Oscar nominee in 2023 for Causeway and an Emmy nominee for Atlanta, scored a Gotham nom for Outstanding Supporting Performance.
Jenkins penned the script after being sought by producer Elishia Holmes, who had seen Shields’ story in the documentary T-Rex: Her Fight for Gold (T-Rex is Shields’ nickname, a dig about her short arm reach that can be a detriment to boxers. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t a detriment for her). Holmes then brought in Jenkins, who also directed this year’s tentpole Mufasa: The Lion King, to adapt the story from the doc.
Jenkins they helped convince Morrison, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Mudbound, to step up to direct.
Read Jenkins’ script here: