Warning: This 'Gleason' Trailer Will Make You Cry (Exclusive)
You know it’s gonna be a cry-fest when the movie trailer alone makes you well up.
That’s the score with Gleason, a documentary about former New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason, who was diagnosed with ALS (otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) shortly after retiring from the NFL in 2008. Like a real-life version of the 1993 Michael Keaton drama My Life, Gleason began making videos for his unborn son, who would never know his dad before the disease’s harsh effects (including difficulty speaking and loss of motor skills) ravaged him.
Watch the inspirational trailer above and prepare yourself for possible waterworks.
On the field Gleason was best known for blocking a punt that was returned for a touchdown in New Orleans’s first home game back in the Superdome after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. “Steve blocking the punt was the rebirth of something really, really big,” it’s explained in the trailer; the play has since been memorialized with a statue outside of the stadium.
Directed by Clay Tweel (the Yahoo Movies favorite Finder’s Keepers), Gleason had its emotional premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It has since won audience awards at South by Southwest and the Seattle International Film Festival.
The film opens July 29.
