Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

[CaptainZombie]

http://movies.ign.com/articles/121/1213908p1.html

SRG Films has announced that they are adapting Matthew Randazzo's book Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit and the Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry into a feature film titled Crossface.

Coming Soon posted a press release that describes Crossface as "a biographical thriller" that "delves into the pressures WWE superstar Chris Benoit faced throughout his wrestling career as the combination of drug-use, depression, and head trauma became increasingly impossible for him to handle. The true story made headline news in 2007 when Chris murdered his wife and young son before taking his own life."

The film's writer, Sarah Coulter, said: "People immediately point to steroids, never thinking about the brain trauma these wrestlers can, and do, incur in their profession, nor do they consider the rigorous schedule that keeps them working even when they shouldn t be. The Benoit story is one that needs to be brought into the light."

Producers are said to be out to directors and actors right now in the hopes of beginning production in late 2012.

[trobinson97]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

Will be checking for this.

[Ejfalcon9]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

My only hope is that they don't give pro wrestling a bad name and portray Benoit as a monster. The movie just needs to tell the story that its not all fake fun and games and how pro wrestling can chew guys up and spit them out.

[oneamongthefence]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

I liked Benoit. Just hate how the WWE handled him after his death.

[Ejfalcon9]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

I liked Benoit. Just hate how the WWE handled him after his death.

Yeah same here. I never expected them to put him up on some pedestal with a HOF induction or DVDs because of the backlash the WWE would get ,but WWE should recognize he wasn't just a psychopathic killing machine and erase him from history to the point the blur out Benoit signs on DVDs and in the record books list stuff like Randy Orton beat N/A to win his first World Championship. Like the press release said people automatically point to steroids and not consider brain trauma. In Chris Jericho's newest book he talked about how the situation was such a shock because despite any family problems Benoit loved kids and wouldn't do anything to harm his own so there's no way it was just random roid rage that set him off.

[Steven547]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

Can't really blame the WWE. Let's face facts, Benoit MURDERED his family. Murder one, murder two...still a murderer. He killed is CHILD and WIFE. Simple as that.

Was he a great entertainer? Yes. But he became a murderer and the WWE had to address this. The last thing the WWE wanted to do was praise him. That would have been frowned upon. I'm not trying to sound harsh, but let's face reality in this situation from a WWE view.

And Pro Wrestling already has a bad name due to all the steroid use, etc. Not sure the movie could really "hurt" it anymore then it's already hurt itself. I would like to see them approach it as a great sport, but high stress / demands involved. I feel like I'm always trying to defend wrestling to others...these wrestlers, in my opinion, are pure athletes. But you can't hide the bad things that have happened or been done by wrestlers.

[Molarmite]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

My only hope is that they don't give pro wrestling a bad name and portray Benoit as a monster. The movie just needs to tell the story that its not all fake fun and games and how pro wrestling can chew guys up and spit them out.

I think the movie The Wrestler did a pretty good job of that.

[King_B_Mack]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

Can't really blame the WWE. Let's face facts, Benoit MURDERED his family. Murder one, murder two...still a murderer. He killed is CHILD and WIFE. Simple as that.

Was he a great entertainer? Yes. But he became a murderer and the WWE had to address this. The last thing the WWE wanted to do was praise him. That would have been frowned upon. I'm not trying to sound harsh, but let's face reality in this situation from a WWE view.

And Pro Wrestling already has a bad name due to all the steroid use, etc. Not sure the movie could really "hurt" it anymore then it's already hurt itself. I would like to see them approach it as a great sport, but high stress / demands involved. I feel like I'm always trying to defend wrestling to others...these wrestlers, in my opinion, are pure athletes. But you can't hide the bad things that have happened or been done by wrestlers.

Good post, I liked Chris and appreciated his work in the business just like everyone else, but the WWE had no choice but to do what they've done with him. I remember everything about that day and the time following. Originally before the facts of the case came out, WWE did a tribute show for Chris, Vince ended his 'who killed Mr McMahon' angle to appear on said show and address the loss of Chris and when the details came out, the media absolutely crushed Vince and the E for doing the tribute show. They put the company through the ringer and you had people like Marc Mero and Chris Nowinski showing up on tv taking shots at the WWE and wrestling in general making the whole industry look bad.

The best and really only thing they could do was completely distance themselves from Benoit by doing exactly what they've done. It sucks, but it had to be done to keep the media off their backs.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

Benoit deserves no sympathy whatsoever simply because he was a great wrestler just like OJ deserves nothing because he was a great football player. I'm sure OJ had some concussions in his career but no one is using that excuse for his murders. They are both horrible people.

Countless # of athletes have suffered multiple brain traumas in contact sports but I can't remember any offhand who decided to cowardly kill a helpless woman and child before killing themselves. The guy was a psychopath and a coward and brain trauma may have influenced his behavoir but you would have to be really sick to begin with to murder your own family on a whim. No type of concussion can cause you to indiscriminately kill, it may have brought it to the forefront but the urge had to always be there or that means anybody with multiple concussions would go on a murderous rampage. That point is always glossed over because we have largely become a blameless society. People always need to find an excuse for someone's behavoir, especially someone who was famous and generally well liked and respected in a well known profession.

Benoit killed 2 people in 2 different rooms. That was premeditated, the poor child was sleeping, he did nothing to set Benoit off. Benoit most likely had this planned as soon as he decided to go home. That's a moral decision. His whole life deserves to be forgotten and any movie should not afford him any sympathy or excuse for what he did.

And when other wrestlers spout off that Benoit was a great father and husband know jack****. They have no idea what his real home life was like. They only saw him at work or what he pretended to be like at family functions. His wife had called police several times on domestic abuse calls prior to the murders and that's the times where she had the guts to call the police. The abuse was probably going on for years.

[Bellsprout]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

My only hope is that they don't give pro wrestling a bad name and portray Benoit as a monster.

............He killed his wife and child.

[Redacted01]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

Benoit deserves no sympathy whatsoever simply because he was a great wrestler just like OJ deserves nothing because he was a great football player. I'm sure OJ had some concussions in his career but no one is using that excuse for his murders. They are both horrible people.

Countless # of athletes have suffered multiple brain traumas in contact sports but I can't remember any offhand who decided to cowardly kill a helpless woman and child before killing themselves. The guy was a psychopath and a coward and brain trauma may have influenced his behavoir but you would have to be really sick to begin with to murder your own family on a whim. No type of concussion can cause you to indiscriminately kill,it may have brought it to the forefront but the urge had to always be there or that means anybody with multiple concussions would go on a murderous rampage. That point is always glossed over because we have largely become a blameless society. People always need to find an excuse for someone's behavoir, especially someone who was famous and generally well liked and respected in a well known profession.

Benoit killed 2 people in 2 different rooms. That was premeditated, the poor child was sleeping, he did nothing to set Benoit off. Benoit most likely had this planned as soon as he decided to go home. That's a moral decision. His whole life deserves to be forgotten and any movie should not afford him any sympathy or excuse for what he did.

And when other wrestlers spout off that Benoit was a great father and husband know jack****. They have no idea what his real home life was like. They only saw him at work or what he pretended to be like at family functions. His wife had called police several times on domestic abuse calls prior to the murders and that's the times where she had the guts to call the police. The abuse was probably going on for years.

There are so many assumptions and speculation in this post it is ridiculous. You have no idea what actually caused his rampage. You assume he had this idea planned out for years, but you don't know that either, just like you claim we don't know if brain injuries actually caused it.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

There are so many assumptions and speculation in this post it is ridiculous. You have no idea what actually caused his rampage. You assume he had this idea planned out for years, but you don't know that either, just like you claim we don't know if brain injuries actually caused it.

Speculation or assumptions? Seriously? There is no justification or excuse to murder an innocent child. If he was that unstable don't you think he would have killed someone at the WWE or at a bar somewhere because he should have snapped way before that with a stranger. If his wife picking a fight with him or his kid having developemental issues was enough to make him go bonkers then how the hell was he able to function at work or anywhere else without going ballistic. That's such a copout. Even if his wife attacked him (which she didn't) why would he kill his own kid after the fact.

Doesn't matter what caused his "rampage" just like it doesn't matter what caused OJ's rampage. The fact is he did it. There are no assumption when you murder your child. I never said that he planned it for years. I said that he had been abusing her for years. Something was up when he decided to leave work and rush home without telling any of his coworkers. He was planning something at that point. You would have to be incredibly naive not to think so.

Put it this way, if Benoit was really drunk and did what he did would he be afforded the same understanding? Uhhh No. But alcohol or drugs screws up your thinking so he shouldn't be held responsible in the same way and given some sympathy that his life was so bad that he needed to drink and outside factors were the reasons he snapped.

I don't think anybody has taken more headshots than Mick Foley, yet he's resisted the urge to kill his family. Benoit was a cowardly nutjob who didn't have the balls just to kill himself, he had to take innocent people with him.

[woody2goody]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

The thing is, if Benoit has brain injuries from wrestling, and he developed mental illness from that, then do you really believe he knew exactly what he was doing?

Don't get me wrong, he could have pre-meditated it, he could have just decided to do it on a whim, but don't belittle the friends and family who loved Chris and thought he was a great man and a great father, and don't underestimate the things that mental illnesses can do to a person.

You weren't there at the time and neither are we, so we will never know what his mindset was like at the time. You are entitled to voice your opinion, but all you are doing is being belligerent and running down other people.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

The thing is, if Benoit has brain injuries from wrestling, and he developed mental illness from that, then do you really believe he knew exactly what he was doing?

Don't get me wrong, he could have pre-meditated it, he could have just decided to do it on a whim, but don't belittle the friends and family who loved Chris and thought he was a great man and a great father, and don't underestimate the things that mental illnesses can do to a person.

You weren't there at the time and neither are we, so we will never know what his mindset was like at the time. You are entitled to voice your opinion, but all you are doing is being belligerent and running down other people.

So is that how you feel about OJ. As far as we know his brain could be swollen too from playing football and he's not really responsible for his actions. We wont know until he dies and check his brain. Or how about that Carolina Panther receiver who paid someone to shoot his pregnent GF a few years ago. I'm sure he took a few headshots as well and under alot of stress because he was close to being cut by the Panthers and owed alot of money in child support with other women. I'm sure you can get alot of family and friends who would vouch what great guys these 2 guys are.

If Benoit was mentally ill do you think that comes out of nowhere the moment he decides to kill his wife and son. Mental illness just doesn't come to you like a migraine headache. Mental illness has many signs that would slowly be evident over years so anybody who worked with him (and wrestlers are together almost 24\7 up to 10 months a year) would have noticed months or years before the murders that something was off with him. Everyone thought he was completely normal, someone with a high degree of mental illness, enough to commit murder, could not hide it very long. There would have been incidents in the WWE way before the murders happened.

Any of his friends and family who thought he was great man and father (WTF) after what he did may be more mentally ill than Chris ever was. It takes a seriously deranged person to methodically kill your child while he sleeps. If you are that mentally ill you wouldn't be able to function day to day and that's not even debateable. You would have no presence of mind to fake being normal. Steelers centre Mike Webster was homeless and couldn't even function in day to day society for years before he killed himself. That's mental illness.

[oneamongthefence]

Re: Crossface - Chris Benoit Movie Announced

Since the true facts aren't known, I still think he should be credited for what he did within the confines of his wrestling career. OJ has his stats still. They weren't erased from the books. I can see how the NFL distanced itself from him but they don't pretend he never existed. The WWE is pretending he never existed which in my opinion is wrong.