Liev Schreiber is set to portray former WWE World Champion Chris Benoit in Crossface, a re-telling of the tragic double-murder suicide that rocked the wrestling world in the summer of 2007. The circumstances surrounding that devastating weekend where Benoit killed his wife and young son, before committing suicide in his home, caused a media sensation that the sports entertainment industry had never before, or has seen, since. MoviePilot.com say Schreiber will portray Benoit in the film that will cover the Canadian grappler's early career days, right up to that horrific weekend. The controversial 'biographical thriller' does not have the backing of World Wrestling Entertainment, Chris Benoit's employer at the time, but former Weinstein Company staffer Sarah Coulter's script does reportedly include several WWE stars, including the late Eddie Guerrero (Benoit's good friend who died less than a year before the fatal incident from heart failure), Triple H and even Vince McMahon. Actors will almost certainly portray these roles. Coulter previously said about the structure of the movie;
Chris had a remarkable career. You take a look at his time in Japan and with Stu Hart, and you realize that youd need more than one movie to tell the entire Chris Benoit story. Ultimately, its about the 2007 murders/suicide, so we had to pick and choose the right moments in Chris career that may have been factors in his downfall.
Crossface is setup at SRG Films who have bought the rights to Matthew Randazzos book Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry, one of the countless number of books about the pressures the wrestling superstar faced throughout his career and tells how it was that a quiet family man, who was 100% dedicated to their safety and his ability to be the absolute best in the squared circle, one weekend murdered his wife and young son before hanging himself. Randazoos book suggests severe depression caused by head trauma and steroid/drug-use that damaged his brain and had turned him psychotic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUzLYndVhpU&noredirect=1 Schreiber looks to be astute casting for the immensely difficult to cast part of Benoit. When you remember the impression he left from Scream 2 and other movies, he ability to portray a seemingly nice guy on the outside who has inner darkness and trauma is second to none... and he even looks like Benoit! It's a highly controversial role in a highly controversial movie, but the producers have sure jumped over a massive hurdle here in getting this project to the filming stage by hiring such a great talent.