Real-life Rocky? Francis Ngannou’s story is beyond anything Hollywood could dream up
When Francis Ngannou’s heartbreaking, tear-jerking, awe-inspiring, miraculous life is imagined as a motion picture – and it will be – Hollywood’s chosen scribes will trade sheepish glances in the writers’ room. Forget any fantasy film they have worked on, any cheesy sporting drama, any puffed-up biopic; they will ask themselves how to tone down Ngannou’s story, how to make it more believable, how to avoid raised eyebrows, rolling pupils and dismissive scoffs in cinemas.
That is because even the most creative, unhinged or audacious scriptwriter would not dare to conjure a narrative with the kind of backstory, plot twists and three-act structure that define Ngannou’s career.
The Cameroonian’s first act would take place in his country of birth, where at just 10 years old he was leaking streaks of sweat and drops of blood in a sand quarry in Batie. This start in life
