Jason Bateman is on board to both star in and direct an eight-episode series adaptation of David Gauvey Herbert‘s 2021 Esquire magazine article Daddy Ball. Netflix and Aggregate prevailed in a bidding war to secure rights to the project, which will reportedly have a new title soon.
The series will be a dark comedy revolving around two fathers with complicated pasts, who take their rivalry that began over youth sports too far. There were claims of stalking, corrupt cops, and even mob connections.
While determined not to follow in his detached father’s footsteps, Bobby Sanfilippo found himself doing quite the opposite with his son, becoming entangled in an epic travel baseball dad-on-dad rivalry with a man named John Reardon. It was so bad and infamous that tabloids began to call him “a Suffolk County Steinbrenner” and one of the worst dads in youth sports history.
While it’s a story that contains many stranger-than-fiction incidents, it’s also a tale about the lengths fathers will go for their sons.
It sounds like the kind of bizarre true story that will capture a lot of people’s attention, which makes it no surprise that Netflix reportedly beat out seven other offers for the rights. Bateman has always excelled in these sorts of roles – assuming that he’s playing one of the dads – and has also proven himself to be a talented director, so this is a perfect project for him.
Herbert is no stranger to his work being adapted for the screen. Another Esquire article of his, ‘The Ballad of Ron & Dorinda,’ is currently set up at MRC with Jessie Nickson-Lopez adapting, and his New York Magazine article ‘Boss at the Beach’ is in development at Fox TV and Searchlight with Darren Aronofsky on board.
It will be a while until we see Daddy Ball – under its new title, of course – but in a few years, don’t be surprised if this is the hot new Netflix series everyone is talking about.
#Peace.Love.DaddyBall
