Austin Butler to Play Lance Armstrong in Edward Berger Biopic

Austin Butler is set to portray Lance Armstrong in a new biopic directed by Edward Berger, the filmmaker behind Conclave. Scott Stuber, the former Netflix Films chairman, is producing the project for United Artists, and major streaming companies and studios are already locked in a distribution bidding war.

Butler, who earned acclaim for his Oscar-nominated turn as Elvis, has Enemies due next alongside Jeremy Allen White; Berger is currently shooting The Riders with Brad Pitt. The film will revisit Armstrong’s rise and fall in road racing. He won seven consecutive Tour de France titles between 1999 and 2005 for the US Postal/Discovery team but was stripped of those victories in 2012 after the United States Anti-Doping Agency found he had used performance-enhancing drugs.

Armstrong publicly admitted to doping a year later, and in April 2018 he agreed to pay $5 million to the U.S. government following a whistleblower lawsuit filed by former teammate Floyd Landis with the Department of Justice.

United States