Super Story: Kurt Warner had a tale that was made for Hollywood. The journey to the silver screen had its own drama.

S upermarket stockboy to Super Bowl winning quarterback.

Rarely has any athlete had a journey that seemed so perfectly tailored for Hollywood than Kurt Warner. Yet going from overlooked obscurity to Pro Football Hall of Famer may have been easier than getting the movie about his life, “American Underdog,” made.

It certainly took longer. From the moment he burst onto the scene as the St. Louis Rams’ starting QB in 1999 and led them to a Super Bowl title, Warner’s story — undrafted from the University of Northern Iowa; working at a grocery store to make ends meet; and toiling in the Arena League before getting his chance with the Rams — was being discussed as a natural fit for the silver screen. That pursuit by Hollywood filmmakers with bold plans to put his storybook arc on film only intensified when his NFL career ended in 2010.

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“It started very soon after I retired,” said Warner. “Obviously you heard the rumors and the comments when I was playing, and really ever since that ’99 season. ‘Oh, this story needs to be made into a movie,’ or ‘When is this going to be on the big screen?’ We actually had discussions with a number of different production companies at that point about the movie, and even signed with one. And it’s really been about a 10-year process of getting it right.”

That first deal, which Warner wouldn’t go into detail on, eventually fell through. Warner said he and his wife, Brenda, insisted that an eventual movie go beyond football to detail their personal struggles, both financially and in their family, and ultimately provide audiences a deeper message of perseverance.

“We’re fortunate that Lionsgate and the Erwin brothers had followed this story and were passionate about this story with their background in faith and background in football, so we were able to revive it a few years ago when we got connected with them,” said Warner. “And they saw the vision very early, and they were very open to what we saw the story to be, and that was the first time where you felt like you really had a chance.”

The long-awaited end result opens in theaters on Dec. 25 and tracks Warner’s path from his time at the University of Northern Iowa through his first Super Bowl with the Rams in January 2000. The film stars Zachary Levi (perhaps best known for his lead role in “Shazam!”) as Warner, Academy Award winner Anna Paquin as Brenda and Dennis Quaid as St. Louis Rams head coach Dick Vermeil. The film is directed by brothers Andrew and John Erwin, with Brenda and Kurt Warner both serving as executive producers.

Producer Mark Ciardi also credits Lionsgate for sticking with the project during COVID-19 lockdowns that shuttered theatrical film productions throughout Hollywood. “They’re a theatrical company and there was just so much uncertainty around it. But they stayed committed to the movie,” said Ciardi, who was brought on by the Erwins in early 2020. “I love the fact that [Lionsgate] took that chance on theatrical and how it would come back, and boy it feels well-positioned now at the holidays.”

Ciardi, who’s made a career of producing inspirational sports films like “The Rookie,” which starred Quaid, and “Invincible,” which told the tale of another underdog who reached the NFL in former Philadelphia Eagle Vince Papale, was one of the many filmmakers who tried and failed to acquire the Warner movie rights over a decade ago.

Another reason the film was able to survive the financial pressures of COVID was Levi signing on to star as Warner. After the film’s initial plans to enter production in May 2020 had been postponed, Levi, a friend of Andrew Erwin’s, reached out upon hearing some industry chatter that he might be a good fit to play the quarterback. “I said I know you’re booked for the next three years with ‘Shazam 2’ and all that other stuff, so I wasn’t even going to pitch you,” said Erwin. “He read the script, and it really moved him emotionally. He texted me back at midnight and said let’s do a football movie. When he signed on, it just shot off into a different stratosphere.”

When filmmaking finally got underway last January, it was under less-than-ideal circumstances. A planned 45-day shoot was cut down by one-third, and filming was further complicated by the fierce winter storm that hit Oklahoma and Texas in February. That’s to say nothing of COVID-related restrictions that directly affected the filmmakers’ plans.

“One of the major challenges of doing a sports movie in COVID is the maximum number of people you could have is around 150,” said John Erwin. “We wanted to put the camera with a wide lens into the game and make this really a sort of visceral cinematic experience, and we didn’t want to relent on that, which meant we had to get creative with digital effects. All the stands are digital, and all the people in those stands are digital.”

Digitizing the crowd was a particular challenge when recreating Arena Football League games, where fans were right on top of the action. “They’re real fans, but we had to film them one by one with nine different cameras on a green screen,” added Erwin. “We couldn’t use digital computer-generated crowds like [with NFL games] at the end of the movie because they’re so close, so we really did film all the fans but had to film them one by one and comp them in so that they could be close together.”

The film is also packed with historical details, including official marks from the AFL and NFL, as well as past game footage and clips from sports networks that covered Warner’s career. All told, filmmakers spent close to $1 million on acquiring those rights.

“It’s a huge amount of clearing. Everyone had to rely on a lot of our own relationships and personal relationships. We partnered with the NFL early in this process, and they loved the script,” said Ciardi. “It started pretty much when we were shooting and has really been this whole year, getting everything cleared and checked off and on board.” NFL game footage in particular was critical to the tail end of the film, in which the Erwins — who began their careers as ESPN camera operators — blend the film’s footage with historical clips. 

Past stadium signage was recreated, and another layer of accuracy came from having the Warners available throughout production. Ciardi said Brenda in particular was a major presence on set, and the Erwins noted that the filmmaking process actually began with several days of on-camera interviews with the Warners.

For Kurt Warner, “American Underdog” required enormous personal investment, from making notes on an early script to chiming in on set, though he ultimately acknowledged that some choices were best left in the filmmakers’ hands.

“A lot of times when somebody is doing a movie on your life, you think at the end of the day it should be ‘I want this, put this in the movie,’” said Warner. “And there were times that John and Andy said, ‘You know what, other ideas you’ve had have been great, but this one’s not great and this one won’t make the movie better. And you have to trust us in this and we’re going to stand firm to what we know in this movie-making business.’ As hard as that is to hear sometimes, that to me is what made this movie as good as it is.”