Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Eminem Will Play Dmitriy Salita in Upcoming Bruckheimer Film

It’s a fairly mind-blowing prospect, but, yes, it appears that Eminem is preparing to play Orthodox Ukrainian-born Jewish boxer, Dmitriy Salita, in an upcoming Disney film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The working title: “Knockout.”

In an email, Salita — who I profiled recently for the Forward — provided a few more details about the project.

Over seven years ago, Bruckheimer bought the rights to a film about Salita’s life up to the age of 19 (when he won the New York Golden Gloves). Salita and his trainer, Jimmy O, were then contacted by Gregory Allan Howard, a screenwriter who wrote “Remember the Titans,” the 2000 Denzel Washington film about a high school football coach who integrated an all white team in the early 1970s. Howard was building a script around a newspaper article in the Washington Post that described Salita’s turn towards religion and his relationship with his trainer.

Salita says the script was finished last year and the details are now being finalized by Disney.

As for Eminem, he trained a few years ago in Detroit with Emmanuel Steward, Salita’s current trainer, and as far as Salita knows, he is still slated to play him in the film.

The original title was “Golden Boy,” but Salita said it was recently changed to “Knockout.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.