Universal And Frank Marshall Developing Movie Inspired By Fitness Icon Jake Steinfeld

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures is in early development on a project inspired by the life of fitness icon Jake Steinfeld that will be produced by Frank Marshall. Sources say no talent is involved at this time.

Universal declined comment.

While plot details are unknown the film is not expected to be a straight biopic and is expected to explore the culture movement Steinfeld started for personal fitness training.

That said, the list of things he has accomplished over the last 45 years is as extensive as it gets. Steinfeld is considered an icon in the personal fitness movement. He helped launch the personal fitness training industry more than 40 years ago and has been the guiding light for health & wellness in lifestyle, sports and entertainment ever since. A force in direct-to-consumer sales of home fitness equipment, he had the most profitable string of hits in the infomercial industry and spent 15 years on HSN promoting his Body by Jake brand.

Famously training such celebrities as Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford (specifically on the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom set), Steinfeld would become one of the more high-profile trainers of the 1980s. He also had a segment on CNN entitled Fitness Break by Jake in the early ’80s that encouraged audiences to get off the couch and move.

Steinfeld also wrote, produced and starred in a one-man show called No Expectations at the MGM’s Hollywood Theater in Las Vegas.

Utilizing his entrepreneurial street-smarts, Steinfeld created the first 24-hour fitness & lifestyle television network, FiTTV, which he later sold to News Corp. Following the sale, he launched ExerciseTV, the first on-demand fitness & lifestyle television network.

Steinfeld became chairman of the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports under then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 and served until 2011, with a focus on fighting the rising epidemic of childhood obesity.

Among the films he produced included The Grizzlies, which premiered at the 2018 Toronto Film Festival and won a Directors Guild of Canada Award for Best Director for Miranda de Pencier.