Austin Butler To Play Lance Armstrong

Austin Butler is attached to star in a film about infamous professional cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Zach Baylin (“King Richard”) is writing the movie with Edward Berger (“Conclave”) on board to direct the project while Berger, Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbit are producing.

Deadline reports that Stuber has been working for a while to get Armstrong’s life rights and the project went out to studios and “already caused a frenzied bidding war” with several offers out there.

Armstrong survived a battle with cancer and returned to the world of pro cycling, winning the famed Tour de France seven consecutive times.

Then, after denying it for years, he admitted to blood doping which ended his professional cycling career. Ben Foster played him in a 2015 film called “The Program,” but Armstrong wasn’t involved in that.

The new project is dubbed “F1 meets The Wolf of Wall Street” and will follow all of the life and career of Armstrong. It marks the first time Armstrong has signed off on his life rights, and while he will help develop it, he won’t be producing.