The Rock makes one for the kids
May 24, 2005 – Production commenced in
California’s Santa Monica Mountains this week on Columbia Pictures’ Gridiron Gang starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Xzibit. The film is directed by Phil Joanou. Based on a true story, Gang is about a football team created within a juvenile detention camp. The film is written by Jeff Maguire and based on a documentary by Lee and Linda Stanley.

The Rock plays detention camp probation officer Sean Porter. Against the odds, Porter assembles a ragtag group of dangerous teens into a competitive high school-level football team. His co-worker, Malcolm
Moore (Xzibit) joins in on the endeavor. As you might imagine, the two meet up with almost universal resistance from superiors at the detention camp as well as rival coaches and players skeptical about
facing off against inmatesIGN FilmForce has spoken with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson a few times
in recent months about the film and he has been very excited to talk about the project: “The drama’s called Gridiron Gang and it’s going to be with Sony and it’s a true story. It takes place in a teenage prison came and one man, literally transforms all these kids’ lives. It takes place up in Malibu, and up
in the Malibu mountains there’s a couple of prison camps up there. When kids can’t go to prison, say for example murder, they get sent to these camps first? I’m the man, yeah, Sean Porter is his name.

“I think after a movie like Be Cool comes out and a movie like Gridiron Gang, which is a true story, it’s about hope. I don’t want to place it into the same category as Coach Carter, because that was about the coach and what he did. This is about one man and what he did for all these kids. And all
of these kids, half are alive, half are dead, but you care about each individual kid and there are stories about each one? It’s really incredible. I think after a movie like that I really wanted to make movies in basically every genre and try to do well in it.”

credit: http://www.ignfilmforce.com