"The Express" tells the story of Ernie Davis, the first African-American winner of football's Heisman Trophy.
This could have been known as a factual, historically truthful movie IF the makers had not taken unnecessary racial shot at West Virginia University while producing the film.
The movie includes a scene in which Mountaineer fans hurl racial slurs and trash at Davis and his Syracuse University teammates during a 1959 game in Morgantown.
West Virginia was never mentioned in the original Charles Levitt script, nor did WVU play Syracuse during this historical time frame. Thus the film falsely depicts the West Virginia and WVU.
Levitt says the script he gave Universal Pictures did not mention WV or West Virginia University. He had said that the scene was supposed to depict a 1958 game at Tar Heels Stadium in North Carolina - a choice that also displayed artistic license.
"It is a sad fact of my business that when a screenwriter turns a script over to a studio, the studio and the filmmakers own it," wrote Leavitt. "They can do anything they want with it - even rewrite parts of it without consulting me and without my knowledge or consent."
This could have been known as a factual, historically truthful movie IF the makers had not taken unnecessary racial shot at West Virginia University while producing the film.
The movie includes a scene in which Mountaineer fans hurl racial slurs and trash at Davis and his Syracuse University teammates during a 1959 game in Morgantown.
West Virginia was never mentioned in the original Charles Levitt script, nor did WVU play Syracuse during this historical time frame. Thus the film falsely depicts the West Virginia and WVU.
Levitt says the script he gave Universal Pictures did not mention WV or West Virginia University. He had said that the scene was supposed to depict a 1958 game at Tar Heels Stadium in North Carolina - a choice that also displayed artistic license.
"It is a sad fact of my business that when a screenwriter turns a script over to a studio, the studio and the filmmakers own it," wrote Leavitt. "They can do anything they want with it - even rewrite parts of it without consulting me and without my knowledge or consent."