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While the hockey movie canon isn’t as vast and diverse as those devoted to baseball or football, it does have its share of favorites and cult classics. Take, for instance, the 1986 Rob Lowe vehicle Youngblood, in which a very pretty young man by the improbable name of “Dean Youngblood” (Lowe) learns to take and dish out punches on the ice from mentor Patrick Swayze, ultimately winning the girl (Cynthia Gibb) by learning to beat the shit out of people as well as he skates and shoots.
There’s been a remake of Youngblood kicking around for a few years now, having previously been led by former pro hockey player-turned-writer and director Charles Officer. The film had reportedly even managed to film a scene or two, before Officer’s death in 2023 apparently spelled doom for the project. Now, though, it looks like that version of Youngblood is being revived, now in the hands of Hubert Davis, whose 2022 documentary Black Ice explored the realities of racism in the modern NHL. In a statement to Deadline, Davis made it clear he has more on his mind with this new version than mining nostalgia for classic sports cheese, saying that, “Youngblood is not an homage to the movies of the ’80s but a re-orienting of these films and ideas—especially those about masculinity which my generation grew up on. Through our protagonist Dean Youngblood, we explore the nuances of the Black masculine experience via the camaraderie, brutality and triumph of the world of hockey.”
The new version of the film is set to star Ashton James as the modern take on Dean Youngblood, with Blair Underwood in the pivotal role of the young hockey player’s dad. No one from the original film (a cast that also includes Keanu Reeves, in his first film role) is expected to appear in Davis’ new version.