Tyrese Gibson is trading the driver's seat for a clipboard. The Fast and Furious star is set to lead Under the Boards, a sports drama about a real New Jersey high school basketball team, The Hollywood Reporter reported on Thursday, November 12. The indie film is expected to start production in February.

Gibson will play Gene Allen, the larger-than-life head coach of Atlantic City High School. The movie draws on what the team lived through from 2003 to 2013, the stretch when the school won its first New Jersey state championships.

Next to him on the bench is Jim Schafer, a math teacher with a head for strategy who becomes the assistant coach. That role has not been cast yet.

"Part Preacher, Part Politician and Part Father"

Scott Rosenfelt is writing and directing. He is best known as a producer, with Home Alone, Mystic Pizza, Teen Wolf and Smoke Signals on his resume.

"This film belongs to Atlantic City," Rosenfelt told THR. "Tyrese understands that a coach like Gene is part preacher, part politician and part father to every kid on that bench. He is going to bring that whole community to life."

There is a family tie here too. The real Jim Schafer is married to Rosenfelt's cousin.

Rosenfelt produces with Salome Breziner, who has worked with Gibson before. "It is an honor to bring Jim Schafer's story to life and to celebrate a community that never stopped believing," she said. "I am so excited to be working with Tyrese again."

Gibson is also an executive producer, along with Schafer and T'Shaun Barrett. Debby Schafer is a co-producer.

Back to Drama

Most people know Gibson as Roman Pearce, the fast-talking heart of the Fast and Furious movies, or from the Transformers films. But his screen career started with John Singleton's Baby Boy in 2001, a raw, grown-up performance that people still bring up. More recently he led the 2024 crime drama 1992.

A coach who has to be everything to a team full of teenagers sits a lot closer to that side of his work than to anything with a nitrous button.

The film is meant to honor more than the coaches. According to THR, it celebrates the athletes, families, teachers and neighbors who backed a team few people expected to win.

No distributor or release date has been announced.