By Everyone's getting quite excited about Taika Waititi getting back involved with Marvel for Thor 4, but the upcoming Waititi film you should really be getting is a lot more low-key. He's turning the greatest documentary about football ever made into a comedy drama film. Call him Tiki taka Waititi.
Sadly, he's not casting John Sitton while adapting Orient: Club For A Fiver or Graham Taylor in An Impossible Job. According to Slashfilm he's set to turn Next Goal Wins, the 2014 documentary about the American Samoa football team, into a film. He's directing and has co-written the script with The Inbetweeners' Iain Morris.
Variety had initially billed it as a "secret project," but if you've seen Next Goal Wins already, you'll recognise that this is pretty much as perfect a marriage between director and subject as could have been rustled up.
As mentioned, it's about the American Samoa football team, and follows their attempts to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. However, given that they were trying to do that while recovering from the international humiliation of losing 31-0 to Australia in 2001, they needed a bit of help.
That arrived in the form of newly arrived Dutch-American coach Thomas Rongen, a workaholic who comes across as being occasionally psychotic but generally very caring toward his new charges, particularly Fa'afafine player Jaiyah Saelua, the first non-binary player to play in a men's World Cup qualifier. Honestly, if you've not watched it already, watch it.
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