'Concussion' Director Denies Altering Film Due to Pressure from NFL

Three months before the film Concussion is released in theaters, its writer/director, Peter Landesman, is defending it against allegations of being altered to avoid drawing the NFL's ire. 

Speaking to Mike Fleming Jr. of Deadline.com, Landesman said neither he nor the studio had discussions with the league regarding content in the film:

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There was absolutely zero discourse between me or anybody at the studio with the NFL. None. The only exchange was one-sentence e-mails trying to arrange a meeting, before deciding to cancel the meeting. Period. End of story. That goes not just with the footage issue, but with any issue. There was absolutely no communication with the NFL. In terms of the footage, same thing. We had absolutely no communication with them. We had our methodology of telling our story, and we did it unapologetically, and with the utmost fairness and concern for all considerations, legal, artistic, and otherwise.

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This stems from a report by Ken Belson of the New York Times claiming emails from Landesman, Sony Pictures executives and representatives of Will Smith, who stars in the film, had discussions about how the story should be presented:

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In dozens of studio emails unearthed by hackers, Sony executives; the director, Peter Landesman; and representatives of Mr. Smith discussed how to avoid antagonizing the N.F.L. by altering the script and marketing the film more as a whistle-blower story, rather than a condemnation of football or the league.

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Belson cites specific emails, including one from Dwight Caines, Sony Pictures president of domestic marketing, that said Smith and the movie aren't anti-football and that Smith "isn’t planning to be a spokesman for what football should be or shouldn’t be."

Another email cited said the film had "unflattering moments for the NFL" that wound up being altered or taken out of the final product altogether.

Landesman told Fleming his movie "pulls no punches, compromises, nothing" and that the Sony hack referenced by Belson occurred when an earlier draft of the script was available online, which the NFL "no doubt" saw.

He also said there "wasn't a single consideration" for the NFL at any time during the process of writing or shooting the movie. 

Concussion is based on a true story and scheduled to be released on Christmas Day. Smith stars as Dr. Bennet Omalu, who performed the autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Mike Webster and discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). 

CTE has become a huge topic in concussion and head trauma cases for former NFL players. In 2014, PBS' Frontline published a report in which data from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ brain repository in Bedford, Massachusetts, showed signs of CTE in 76 of 79 former NFL player brains studied. 

The trailer for Concussion does use the NFL logo, though there is no actual game footage that appears. There are still a few months before the film is released, so it's unlikely anyone outside of Landesman and people at the studio have seen what content is going to be in the finished product.