"Concussion," a new movie starring Will Smith, could be bad news for the NFL. In the past few years concussions have become a dominant talking point, and the NFL has had to settle with retired players for billions of dollars regarding head injuries, and efforts to hide the traumatic effects of playing football.
In the original storyline, Smith was cast as the scientist to first expose the NFL's concussion problem and their efforts to cover it up, lending a more sinister take on the league. The script has changed since then, and according to e-mails by Sony executives that were exposed in a hack, that was to avoid confrontation with the NFL.
"Will is not anti football (nor is the movie) and isn't planning to be a spokesman for what football should be or shouldn't be but rather is an actor taking on an exciting challenge," Dwight Caines, the president of domestic marketing at Sony Pictures, wrote in an email on Aug. 6, 2014, according to The New York Times.
"We'll develop messaging with the help of N.F.L. consultant to ensure that we are telling a dramatic story and not kicking the hornet's nest."
Other e-mails say a lot of the "bite" was removed from the film "for legal reasons with the N.F.L. and that it was not a balance issue."
Peter Landesman, who directed "Concussion," said that the changes were not an act of submission to the billion-dollar industry that is the NFL. Rather, he said the changes were meant to shield himself, and Sony, from an angry NFL alleging they took too much "creative license."
"We don't want to give the N.F.L. a toehold to say, 'They are making it up,' and damage the credibility of the movie," Mr. Landesman said.
"There were things that might have been creatively fun to have actors say that might not have been accurate in the heads of the N.F.L. or doctors. We might have gotten away with it legally, but it might have damaged our integrity as filmmakers."
Landesman also unequivocally stated that they never "compromised the storytelling" because of pressure from the NFL.
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