Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Hairspray) are bring the stage musical Damn Yankees to the big screen for New Line Cinema, and heavyweights Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal have been attached.
The plot — known to high school drama clubs but probably not a ton of other people — follows a middle-aged baseball fanatic named Joe who sells his soul to the devil to become a young baseball star in order to turn around the losing streak of his beloved team the Washington Senators. The deal has an escape clause, but the deadline to back out comes before the end of the World Series.
To make sure he won’t pull out of the deal, the devil enlists the lost soul Lola to help Joe forget about his former life with his wife.
Jake Gyllenhaal would play the younger Joe, and Jim Carrey would play the devil. The producers — who first attempted to get this movie off the ground in 2003 — are aiming to update the musical from its very 1950s roots while still retaining its classic songs.
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