Southpaw

Kurt Sutter wrote the script for Eminem, drawing on the personal struggle the rapper laid out on his album. Eminem left in December 2012, saying he thought of himself as a musician first and an actor second; the part passed to Jake Gyllenhaal when Antoine Fuqua came aboard in March 2014. Eminem stayed on as the soundtrack’s executive producer and wrote the song Phenomenal. Shaping it around a rapper’s biography explains why the fall and recovery arc is legible from the first reel. What happens in the ring is less conventional. Fuqua shot the bouts as broadcasts rather than montages: HBO and Showtime boxing veterans worked the cameras, a real crowd filled the seats, and Gyllenhaal fought three rounds at a stretch with no double. Preparation ran five months, twice a day almost daily with trainer Terry Claybon; Fuqua worked out alongside him before dropping to once a day. James Horner wrote the score. He phoned Fuqua after seeing the film, told him not to worry about money and paid his own crew. Horner died in a plane crash on 22 June 2015, a month before the film opened. A good fit if you want the fights held long and uncut, three rounds at a time. Not for viewers hoping the plot will surprise them.