You touch on an interesting point, which is that the Nile Kinnick/Ironmen story is probably harder to translate to film than you might think.
While the Ironmen are beloved in Iowa lore, it’s hard to make them underdogs on the level of Hoosiers or Miracle. The challenge is that although the Ironmen pulled a couple of improbable, unthinkable upsets over Notre Dame and Minnesota, to be blunt, they didn’t actually win anything. They didn’t win the national title or even a Big Ten title, thanks to the season-ending stumble against Northwestern. The NW game was a mess: it cost Iowa a share of the conference title, Kinnick had his consecutive minutes streak snapped with a separated shoulder, and the game ended in a tie. At least losses are dramatic...ties are just stupid. (By the way, this is only one of so many reasons to hate Northwestern.)
An Ironmen movie would pretty much have to downplay or gloss over that whole game. At any rate, it doesn’t have the satisfying ending that many underdog movies have. (A movie about Warren Holloway would have a better ending, as far as that goes.)
Clearly, Nile Kinnick is the key here - Heisman winner, All-American boy, giving his life for his country. The drawback with Kinnick is that he’s almost too clean-cut...there’s no real drama there.
I think back to a Jim Thorpe movie from decades ago with Burt Lancaster in the lead. Like Kinnick, Thorpe was a legendary athlete. Thorpe was also a drunk, got a divorce, and was a bad father for a while there. He’s nowhere near as admirable as Kinnick, but he also might be seen as more interesting.
The trick is telling the Kinnick story honestly and still making him three-dimensional, not just a prototypical Jesus-like figure. Nile was such a straight arrow that he doesn’t bring a lot of drama to the table, which is a good thing from a personal standpoint but a hurdle for a movie.
(With respect to the Black Panther jokes, the trend really is toward portraying black athletes in a time of segregation. Whether it’s Jackie Robinson (42), Ernie Davis (The Express), or Jesse Owens (Race), black athletes from that time period bring a certain amount of drama to the table by default. Throw in leukemia with Davis or Nazis with Owens, and the conflict is easy to script.)
Don’t get me wrong...a Kinnick and the Ironmen movie isn’t impossible. It just takes a little more craft and experience than some other stories. And at the risk of beating a dead horse, I’ve seen nothing to suggest these guys have what it takes.
