Al Pacino Puts the Pa in Paterno as JoePa Gets the Biopic Treatment

Having already played a famous, albeit fictional, football coach in Any Given Sunday, Al Pacino is heading back out to the field again, this time in a movie about disgraced Penn State football program legend Joe Paterno in a new film from Scarface and Carlito's Way-director Brian De Palma, tentatively titled Happy Valley and based on the book 'Paterno' by  Joe Posnanski.

Posnanki's book follows 'Paterno's final years, as the winningest coach in college football history saw his career end in disgrace in 2011 with the sex abuse scandal involving assistant Jerry Sandusky.' Which means there probably won't be any free screenings offered up to the students of Penn State like there was for Van Wilder when I was a college kid. But De Palma, known for his violent, tense thrillers, is an interesting choice to bring the story of a celebrated man who watched his entire legacy shatter due to an assistant's crimes just before his own death. But judging from the evidence, whenever he teams up with Pacino, you know you're in for something special.