Haute 100 LA: Trailer for ‘Concussion’ Starring Will Smith Causes Sensation

With NFL season slated to commence in less than two weeks, it’s the perfect opportunity for the trailer for Concussion, which stars Will Smith, to hit the Internet.

In the movie, Haute 100 lister and the Philadelphia native plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, the first to identify, describe and name Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy [CTE] as a disease in pro football players as well as wrestlers. The movie follows Omalu as he studies ex-pros such as Dave Duerson, who is played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Andre Waters, played by Richard T. Jones. It will also showcase the hurdles Omalu face from the NFL.

The film also stars Alec Baldwin as Dr. Julian Bailes, a doctor who helping Omalu, Belle star Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Luke Wilson, who as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, among others.

The film is based off a GQ article titled “Game Brain” written by Jeanne Marie Laskas. In the article, Laskas describes how Omalu identified the disease. In the article she writes, “Omalu put Mike Webster’s [NFL Hall of Famer] brain in a plastic tub and took it home to his condo in the Churchill section of Pittsburgh. He put it in the corner of his living room, where he set up a table, a cutting board, some knives, and a microscope, where he could work without shame as long as he wanted and as hard as he wanted, no one looking over his shoulder except Prema, his sympathetic wife.” She continued, “One day he started on a new set of slides, prepared for him by a lab at the University of Pittsburgh where he had ordered specialized staining. He was ordering so many slides, he had to start paying for this out of his own pocket. He put the first slide from the new set under his microscope and looked in. ‘What is this?’ he said out loud. ‘Geez. Gee! What is this?’ Brown and red splotches. All over the place. Large accumulations of tau proteins. Tau was kind of like sludge, clogging up the works, killing cells in regions responsible for mood, emotions, and ecutive functioning. This was why Mike Webster was crazy.”

Concussion is slated to hit theatres on Christmas day. Check out the trailer below.

In my column today is the exclusive trailer for @ConcussionMovie, starring Will Smith. http://t.co/niEkvJd1aK https://t.co/mVKMUm4rNy

— Peter King (@SI_PeterKing) August 31, 2015

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