The heated rivalry between tennis greats Swede Bjorn Borg and American John McEnroe is to be made into a film.
"Borg/McEnroe," will trace the rivalry between the two pair at the at the 1980 Wimbledon final, considered to be one of the best tennis matches ever played.
It was their different styles of playing tennis as well as their temperament that made their rivalry more intense in the eyes of spectators.
Borg, then 24, was cool, calm and collected, while McEnroe, 21, was seen as tennis' bad boy with a fiery temperament, sometimes getting into shouting matches with referees.
John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg at Wimbledon in 2000. Photo: Photosport
"I think it's a story about two people who were seen as opposites but had more in common than most people know of and a friendship developing out of that meeting," Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen said.
John McEnroe at Wimbledon in 2001. Photo: Photosport
The film, currently shooting in Sweden, will also star veteran Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard as Borg's coach Lennart Bergelin and is scheduled for a 2017 release.
LaBeouf said he is "pretty confident" about the film, and hoped McEnroe would be one of the first to see the movie.
"I'm excited to show him the movie and I'm sure he'll see it before everybody," LaBeouf said.
"We love John on this side you know. It's been very inviting from our camp to his and we're gonna link up eventually and I'm sure he'll like what we did."
Skarsgard shared his own memories of watching the match between Borg and McEnroe in the summer of 1980.
"That final quickly stopped being sport. It became huge drama and it was fantastic to see and I ended up just as interested as all sports freaks," Skarsgard said.
-Reuters
