Exclusive video: Penn Alum “Fighter” filmmaker gives DT a shoutout

It’s not often that DT wins out exclusive interviews over Oprah, The View and Entertainment Tonight, but we did this time while we visited film producer Todd Lieberman (C’95, Mask and Wig, AEPi) on his Hollywood Muppets movie set.

While the Muppets movie isn’t due out until Thanksgiving 2011, the real news is about Todd’s 6 Golden Globe nominated film The Fighter which comes out today.

After the jump, watch the video Todd shot for DT and the Penn community and learn more about why people gasp when they hear how long The Fighter took to make.

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Todd’s film The Fighter not only has been getting great reviews, but it’s been nominated for Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globes, SAG awards ….and surely Oscars.

In a nutshell, the film is a look at the early years of boxer “Irish” Micky Ward and his brother who helped train him before going pro in the mid 1980s. I’ve seen the movie and there are some real stellar performances by Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo (love her!).

Watch this great trailer that appeared during this season’s “Mad Men” finale:

Todd tells me that they shot the whole movie remarkably in 33 days and all of the boxing was shot in 3 days; “Everytime someone hears that they gasp.”

If you recall, three years ago, I reported about Todd being set to produce this film and at the time it wasn’t Christian Bale starring with Mark Walhlberg, but another popular actor.  Very interesting….

On a related Penn note, it turns out that another alum is producing a film about boxing as well. DreamWorks co-chairman/CEO Stacey Snider (C’82) greenlit Southpaw, starring Eminem playing a “fast-rising welterweight boxer who brawls his way to the title, only to see his world crash down around him due to tragedy. The movie is about his fight to reclaim past glory” (source)

70+ DT stories about Penn alumni film producers HERE