14120308_oriDisney has to feel mighty confident about greenlighting Million Dollar Arm after the decent-enough 42 opened to the biggest first weekend gross for a baseball movie ever (even adjusted for inflation!).  The film was announced last year as a vehicle for Mad Men star John Hamm, playing a real-life (and still active) baseball scout who made worldwide headlines when he staged a reality show in India to audition 40,000 cricket players for MLB pitching positions.

Hamm will join with director Craig Gillespie (Fright Night) and now they’ve added Suraj Sharma (Life Of Pi) as one of the two pitchers Hamm’s character brings to the states. The cast also includes Alan Arkin as a retired sports agent.

Huh, this is feeling a little bit like Baseball Argo, no?

It’s not clear whether Sharma is playing Dinesh Patel or Rinku Singh, though Singh ended up having the more successful run and still plays baseball in Australian leagues today.

The film begins shooting in Mumbai soon and then moves to my neck of woods for the rest of production in Atlanta.

Source | The Wrap