Boston Bruins Great Derek Sanderson Getting Movie Treatment

EXCLUSIVE: Casey Sherman, the Boston-based author and journalist whose bestselling books were turned into movies The Finest Hours and Patriots Day, is set up to write the script for and produce Turk, a movie based on the rise, fall and redemption story of 1970s Boston Bruins hockey star Derek Sanderson. The film will be produced under Sherman’s Fort Point Media banner with Black Mass producer Michael Bassick and Sherman’s partner Dave Wedge.

“Turk” Sanderson was a key cog of the Bruins’ 1970 and 1972 Stanley Cup victories — he assisted on Bobby Orr’s iconic Cup-winning OT goal in ’70, when he was named the NHL rookie of the year and became a pop culture star with his bachelor good looks. In 1972, he bolted the NHL to sign the highest-paying contract in pro sports history with the upstart World Hockey Association’s Philadelphia Blaze.

His highflying life came with a price: injuries sidelined his brief WHA run, and he became a drug addict and alcoholic which cost him his career after he bounced around several teams in his return to the NHL. He ended up homeless until those he loved helped pull him from the abyss and set him on the road to redemption; he now runs a financial advisory firm for athletes.

Sherman, who with Wedge this year published a book about New England Patriots QB Tom Brady, saw his bestselling disaster-at-sea tale The Finest Hours adapted into the 2016 Disney film starring Chris Pine and Casey Affleck. The pair also penned a 2015 book about the Boston Marathon bombing, Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy, which was used in the adaptation of Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg’s 2017 pic Patriots Day.

Sherman and Wedge’s 2017 book, Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight Against ALS, is in development as a Netflix movie with Affleck attached. He also working is with Fox 2000 and producer Greg Berlanti on the mob pic Thacher Island, based on Sherman’s 2014 book Animal: The Bloody Rise and Fall of the Mob’s Most Feared Assassin.

Sherman and Wedge are repped by The Gotham Group.