Lance Armstrong movie to be made by Paramount and J.J. Abrams

By Nicole Sperling

Jan. 18, 2013 12 AM PT

Well that didn’t take long. Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams are making a movie about disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The studio and Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot, have secured the rights to author Juliet Macur’s book proposal “Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong,” to be published by HarperCollins. A release date for the book has not yet been set.

The news was first reported on Deadline.com.

Macur, a sports reporter for the New York Times, has covered Armstrong for more than a decade as the cyclist has made news with his cancer battle, his continuous denial of doping and his admission Thursday night to Oprah Winfrey that he used illegal performing enhancement substances throughout his illustrious career.

Sony Pictures had an earlier Armstrong project in the works with Jake Gyllenhaal set to portray the athlete, back when the cyclist was a hero both in his cycling career and his bout with testicular cancer. But the studio abandoned the project in light of the allegations.

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