Linsanity: Coming To A Theater Near You

Jeremy Lin’s magical season on the big state Madison Square Garden looks to be over, but the phenomenon of Linsanity appears to still have plenty of life on the big (and small) screen.

In March, Lafeng Entertainment announced “Awesome Basketball Kid,” a 30-episode television series about the life of Jeremy Lin that will air in China. The project is still in pre-production, so no word on exactly when it will air here in the Middle Kingdom, but thanks to some good detective work from Beijing Cream, we do know that the show “will have romantic scenes, which are important segments of the show, as the lead character will be involved in relationships with heroines,” in addition to the obvious basketball angle.

In addition to getting some dramatic made-for-television Chinese television series, Lin will also be the subject of a big screen documentary back in the United States. Here’s the story from the Los Angeles Times:

According to a person familiar with the pitch who was not authorized to talk about it publicly, the movie (no firm title yet, so let your pun-riddled imagination run wild) looks both at Lin’s unlikely run in the NBA as well at his humble background. Los Angeles-born and Palo-Alto raised, Lin shone at Harvard after being passed over by recruiters at college powerhouses, then bounced around pro basketball as an undrafted free agent before landing with the Knicks. The movie will also include elements of his Christian faith.

According to the LA Times article, Evan Jackson Leong, who assisted director Justin Lin on “The Fast and the Furious” franchise, will direct. His resume also includes a documentary about Christianity in Asia called “1040.”

Our opinion: If done right and if done on time, the documentary could definitely be a big hit. But the latter will be an issue — if this is released mid-season 2012-13, Linsanity may have already run its course and demand may be low. With no guarantees about his health or his position on the Knicks’ depth chart (assuming they re-sign him this off-season) either, its possible that he could be due for a bit of a statistical drop off. However, if they can get everything together for a summer release or even an early-to-mid fall one, Lin would still be fresh enough in people’s minds for this thing to really blow up.

Either way, there’s enough demand from the many Linsciples for the documentary for it to be successful. You can bet we’ll be keeping a key eye on this as the news keeps coming out.

Via (NiuBBall)

Tags: documentary Jeremy Lin Linsanity movie