The Fighter actor and director are to collaborate on a fourth film, about Father Stuart Long, who died of muscular degenerative disease in Montana in 2014

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

After working together on I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings and The Fighter, Mark Wahlberg and David O Russell are to reteam for a fourth film: a biopic of an athlete who became a priest.

During a Facebook Live post recorded on Wednesday, Wahlberg revealed that the pair were working on a screenplay about Father Stuart Long, a former boxer and aspirant actor who found God.



‘Tough guy’ … Father Stuart Long

“David O Russell and I right now are working on developing a script on Father Stu,” said Wahlberg, “who was an amazing priest from Helena, Montana.”

He continued: “He was a very tough guy who was a fighter, a football player … anything but a spiritual guy. He found his calling, and decided, after falling in love with a woman, that he wanted to become a priest. He suffered from this horrible muscular degenerative disease but was still ordained as a priest and passed away, but not before he was able to inspire thousands upon thousands of people.”

Long, who died aged 50 in 2014 of muscular degenerative disease, was a promising prize-fighter who turned to acting after undergoing reconstructive surgery. But he became disillusioned with the industry and, after a serious motorcycle accident, retrained as a priest.

Wahlberg will next been seen in real-life disaster movie Deepwater Horizon, about the BP oil spill, while Russell is set to make a TV drama series with Julianne Moore and another regular collaborator, Robert De Niro.