The trailer for David O. Russell’s Madden, starring Nicolas Cage, is out, and it looks terrible. It’s not that there are overtly hacky lines in the teaser, or embarrassing cinematographic errors on display. The source material is rich. John Madden lived a unique American life, worthy of exploration. The issue is, as House of Strauss friend Andrew Sharp put it to me, the “uncanny valley problem”.
I contrast this project with HBO’s 1980s Lakers series Winning Time, which was cancelled after two seasons despite attracting a cult following. Maybe Winning Time didn’t work for the masses, but it did at least pass a sniff test Madden fails. I’ve got some ideas on why.