1985 Chicago Bears Limited Series Lands With Steve Pink, Sunset Lane Media (Exclusive)

Daniel Conka is writing an adaptation of 'Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football,' the nonfiction book by Rich Cohen.

The story of one of the greatest NFL teams in football history is taking the field.

Sunset Lane Media, a banner run by executive producer David Beaubaier, has picked up Rich Cohen's acclaimed account of one of America's most famous sports teams, Monsters: Chicago Bears 1985 and Wild Heart of Football, and has assembled an aggressive lineup to adapt the story as a limited series with the event.

Daniel Konka, writer of the Kevin Hart heist Lift and the John Cena action thriller 12 Rounds, will direct the adaptation with Steve Pink, best known for directing the comedies Hot Tub Time Machine and Accepted.

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Cohen, Beaubayer, Conca and Pink are all Windy City natives who experienced this thrilling run firsthand. No network or streamer is connected at this stage.

"It's a love letter to Chicago, and to a moment when a city that's been waiting so long to win finally has a team that looks unstoppable," said Beaubaire, who is an executive producer on Netflix's hit series Night Agent. And the story was not only on the playground. It was in dressing rooms, stands, bars and family rooms all over town. It was charming, funny, emotional and downright messy. We want to recapture that time in all its glory and chaos, remind people why we love these teams and this game so much, and show why, as cities go, Chicago is second best.

The Chicago Bears dominated American football and the national consciousness in 1985 in a way few sports teams had before. They became a national phenomenon at a turning point in sports, when athletes began to become something bigger than what they were on the field.

The team went 15–1 that season, beating both opponents en route to the Super Bowl and defeating the New England Patriots 46–10 in Super Bowl XX, which was watched live by more than 92 million people, the largest television audience in American history at the time.

But the championship is only part of the story.

The Bears have been on the covers of Sports Illustrated, Time and Rolling Stone. The team released a Grammy-nominated single — "Superbowl Shuffle" — even before they won the Super Bowl. Coach Mike Ditka, who died last week, was immortalized in a series of Saturday Night Live sketches.

Underneath this phenomenon was an even more remarkable story: a collection of wildly different people, huge personalities, competing egos and sometimes bitter rivalries that somehow became a team united around a common goal. And with them were the citizens of a city that had been waiting for a championship for decades and wanted to experience something that was almost unbelievable.

"What always fascinates me is that the '85 Bears have kind of gotten bigger over time," says Cohen, the best-selling author who also created the HBO series Vinyl. With Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter. "The characters were huge, the relationships were complex, and what happened behind the scenes was often as dramatic as what happened on Sunday. They were funny, angry, brilliant, difficult and utterly unforgettable. That's why I wrote the book. The mythology is great. The people underneath are even better."

Off the field, Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan battled for control. Running back Walter Payton felt besieged, having spent his career with a losing streak. Quarterback Jim McMahon tangled with Ditka. "Fridge" rookie William Perry became a national sensation overnight. Owner Virginia Halas McCaskey was under intense scrutiny, having just inherited the franchise founded by her father, George "Papa Bear" Halas. Collectively, they became something that none of them could stand alone, embodying the city in which they represented in more ways than one.

"The story of the '85 Bears is one of the greatest stories in sports, but it's also about character," Kanka said. "These guys don't come from the same place; they don't see the world the same. There have been real rivalries, rivalries, egos and tensions. But somehow, they've all come together around one goal. You know how the season ends. What you don't know is everything it takes to get there."

The purpose of this series is to move between the field, the locker room, the front office and the fans in the city to tell the story of a team becoming a phenomenon and a city discovering something it can believe in together.

"I want people in Chicago to watch this and feel like they're back there, and I want everyone who wasn't there to understand why the rest of us never shut up about it," Pink said. "It had to be loud, funny, emotional and alive. These were great characters playing a brutal game in a big American city, and somehow the whole thing became a love story between a team and its city. That's what I want on screen."

Bernie Orenstein, writer and producer of That Girl, Sanford and Son, and What's Happening! He died at the age of 95.