This article was first published in Rouleur Issue 144

After more than a decade of living in international cycling exile, Lance Armstrong is set to return to the Tour de France via Hollywood.

The 54-year-old has sold his life rights for a new biopic that packs some serious A-List punch, with Academy Award nominee Austin Butler, seven-time BAFTA-winning director Edward Berger, screenwriter Zach Baylin, and producer Scott Stuber attached to the project currently in pre-production.

Butler is slated to play Armstrong and met him and his family during the spring. The actor's big breakthrough came in Baz Luhrmann's 2022 epic Elvis and that physically transformational role, plus a scene-stealing turn as villain Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in sci-fi blockbuster Dune: Part Two may aid one of Tinsel Town's leading men in what's been dubbed "a warts and all" portrayal of Armstrong.

Standing at 6ft, Butler reportedly got down to 68kg – one kilo shy of what similarly tall four-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome once described as his ideal race weight – during filming for Elvis. And as Feyd-Rautha, he symbolised the dark side of ambition and power. Or as the screenplay notes described him, 'a sociopath, of high intelligence. Cruel, but strongly motivated by honor'. Since Armstrong was banished following a USADA investigation led by Travis Tygart, sociopath is the one word that readily springs to the minds of cycling industry insiders regarding the Texan. If nothing else, it's exceptional casting.

Neither Berger nor Butler were available to discuss the untitled project, but their representatives both replied to interview requests within 24 hours – unlike Tour organisers ASO, which at the time of print had still left Rouleur on read.

So, whether Armstrong physically returns to the Tour in the name of creative endeavour or does so vicariously remains to be seen. "Thanks for reaching out. I don't do interviews any longer so can't help here," Armstrong said when asked for a comment on the movie.

His status as persona non grata at the Tour and cycling's public enemy number one does not seem to have affected the man with a lifetime ban from the sport, who continues to fascinate the public and infuriate cycling's governors in equal measure. Armstrong's ostensible commercial savvy remains undimmed as a venture capitalist and broadcaster, whose podcast is promoted on US network NBC, which has rights to the Tour. Next Ventures, the VC company he co-founded, has a stake in American cycling media publications such as Velonews. ASO did, however, permit Armstrong's former manager Johan Bruyneel, who also has a lifetime ban from sport, to attend the Tour last year as accredited media, to the dismay of the UCI that was quick to issue a statement at the time.

Hollywood's ongoing interest in Armstrong doesn't appear to match sentiment within the sport. "The most impressive feat of endurance by Lance Armstrong is not the Tour de France, it's him just trying to worm his way back in for the last 20 years," says LA-based racer turned pundit Phil Gaimon, who suggests Armstrong should "be rich, live in Aspen, and put your feet up, man. It's an uphill battle that you don't have to fight. It's strange."

If Armstrong had a fear, it is perhaps being obsolete. As Oscar Wilde wrote: 'There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about'.

"Tejay van Garderen, Bob Roll, and whoever else they [NBC] have to do the American TV coverage, they're reading an ad for Lance's podcast every few minutes," says Gaimon. "It's like, 'Next on…' and then if you leave the feed on, walk away and go to the bathroom, the stage is over, and Lance's podcast is on. So he's not on the NBC commentary, but it's close.

"It looks like it's a matter of time before he's doing it, and that seems to be what he wants. I don't know why. It's like, why don't you just go drink Mai Tais on the beach, dude? You got away with $100 million. Why nose your way back into this tiny, niche sport that nobody gives a fuck about?"

The Berger/Butler biopic, which Apple apparently won a bidding war to distribute, comes after the 2015 release of The Program – a Stephen Frears film about the so-called Armstrong years, starring Ben Foster and based on a book by journalist David Walsh.

The difference this time round is Armstrong's direct involvement. Long-time fans are warranted in asking what 'warts' there are left to explore.

Cycling, arguably more than any other global sport, has very publicly aired its dirty laundry.

"I'd rather have root canal treatment than talk about Armstrong or his crummy biopic," says one learned colleague, considered a key figure in exposing the former peloton patron when the majority bowed. Not even USADA was interested in reliving what was one of its biggest wins. "We've said all that needs to be said about the Armstrong case," a spokeswoman said.

Former UCI president Brian Cookson recalls inheriting a complete mess when he successfully challenged Pat McQuaid for the top job within the sport's international governing body in the wake of Armstrong's confession. "It wasn't just around Lance Armstrong, but obviously he was the principal character in all of that," Cookson says.

"The media were having a field day. The IOC was threatening to remove cycling from the Olympic Games. ASO, they were absolutely devastated that their event was being traduced in this way, and something had to be done."

The slow but sure demise of Armstrong's racing career coincided with the beginning of mine. As a rookie reporter newly obsessed with the sport, which I'd previously known nothing about, my first interaction with the subsequently stripped seven-time Tour de France winner was memorable.

He'd reportedly been paid a seven-figure appearance fee to travel all the way to Australia and compete at the season-opening Tour Down Under in 2010. Dressed in a tailored tuxedo, the Texan commanded centre-stage during a black-tie gala dinner. The yellow rubber armbands synonymous with his Livestrong cancer charity had been placed on every plate as party favours, further amplifying Armstrong's sporting and philanthropic influence. Even the most discerning of investors would have signed away their lifesavings if he'd asked them to that night. A co-worker said she'd leave the love of her life for him, and I laughed until I realised she wasn't joking.

Several days later I found myself standing in front of Armstrong, now back in team-issue lycra, for an impromptu interview. I leaned my microphone into the minivan he was sitting in with teammates and then physically took a step back as he began to speak, not because I was enamoured (I can't remember anything he said), but because my brain went into overdrive analysing his micro behaviours. Armstrong unapologetically leaned over celebrated Australian teammate Robbie McEwen as he spoke. His purposeful and poised body language added weight to his words. Even his breathing was measured. It was an Oscar-worthy performance. I'd never seen anything like it before and haven't since. But I walked away from the interaction frustrated, because I had no clue as to who Armstrong was either as a human or an athlete. And I never got the chance again to find out.

It was a very different person who arrived back at the Tour Down Under 12 months later as USADA investigators closed in and roadside fans brandishing posters with super-sized drawings of needles, and slogans such as 'PHARMALOGICAL LANCE' became impossible to ignore. Armstrong that year traded the tux for a casual T-shirt, jeans and an intimidating and impenetrable security detail in what proved to be the last race of his prolific and polarising career.

"It was becoming more and more apparent that a number of decisions had been made at UCI headquarters about how to handle all of that, that had, as many decisions do, unintended consequences," Cookson says. "For instance, when EPO first started being used, it was something that was difficult to trace. So UCI responded by putting in place the hematocrit limit, which I'm sure you remember – 50 per cent, putting a lid on it, in theory, which was all well and good. But in another way, it was a signal to all the other riders that had previously maybe not been going down that route to get their hematocrit up to 49.9 per cent.

"It became insidious," Cookson continues. "It was everywhere. I'm not going to cast aspersions over any individuals, but it was clear that after the revelations around Lance Armstrong that things were going in completely the wrong direction, because the UCI had tried to put the lid on that in a way that had had those unintended consequences. It was making things worse. The credibility of the sport – after all these revelations, police raids, and so on – was existentially threatened."

Not that the sport suddenly cleaned up following Armstrong's departure. "It was a long and arduous process to change it," Cookson adds.

My first Tour de France in 2012 as a member of the British press was nowhere near the wild west days colleagues who have reported on the race since before I was born have recalled. But it wasn't squeaky clean either. Rest days doubled as 'pop days'. Frank Schleck, who this season has joined Lidl-Trek as a sports director for the women's team, was expelled from the Tour on the second rest day in Pau for testing positive for a diuretic.

"There were arguments between UCI and WADA, there were arguments within the UCI, with the teams and the race organisers. Specifically, ASO were obviously not happy that the reputation of their flagship sporting event was being damaged and challenged by all of the controversy around it," Cookson says. "The key element there was we had to make a fresh start."

Cookson was seen at the time as part of that reset – a white knight charged with ushering in a new dawn. "Sometimes in organisations, the guy at the top has to take responsibility, whether they like it or not, and that's basically what happened," he continues of his own succession. "That gave me the opportunity to set a new tone, a new standard, to be more consensus-seeking, to be more collegiate in the way the UCI was run, and that was something that had been sorely lacking in the past. It tended to be run by a presidential, oligarchal sort of figure, if I can call people like Hein Verbruggen from the past that."

It was better but not perfect back at the Tour in 2015. When veteran Italian rider Luca Paolini tested positive for cocaine, only a handful of international sports journalists and agents having dinner together left their entrées to investigate.

Conversely, I also recall the first time I saw a summit finish on Mont Ventoux with my own eyes. It looked so bloody hard that my first, split-second thought was that it justified doping. Race organisers surely have a responsibility in determining courses that don't defy what is humanely possible.

"My view now is that it's better and cleaner than it's ever been," says Cookson. "You can never guarantee that there is nobody trying to cheat in sport. But I think the processes now, some of which go back to the biological passport, and I'll give Pat McQuaid credit for that, and the way in which the UCI monitors the activities of ProTeams in terms of their structures, their finances, their doctors, their medical support, their coaching support and so on, that's much, much better than it ever was in the past."

That doesn't eliminate the grey areas in the fiercely competitive landscape that is WorldTour cycling and elite international sport. "What I do think though is that in any elite sport, professional sport, if that's the level of the rules," Cookson says, lifting his arm to his forehead in demonstration, "then professional sports teams will always go up to the top there." He raises his fist to his elevated forearm and then flattens it against it. "That's okay. Don't be surprised when people are pushing the rules. [But] if they go through – that's when you get a problem. Look at Formula One – they go right up to there. Look at football. They invented the term 'professional foul'.

"The problem is when they don't believe their governing body has the integrity and powers to stop them, to do something about it. Or worse, if they feel that the governing body is also corrupt and involved in that level of cheating in some way."

The real legacy of the Armstrong years and cycling's doping past for the industry at large is a distinct sadness, disenchantment, and pain born from deep distrust. It's been evident at all 11 Tours de France I've reported from, where the yellow jersey is asked at almost every press conference if their performances can be trusted. That doesn't happen in any other sport. It's a vow almost, to ensure cycling doesn't regress, albeit one that feels increasingly wrong to put to a generation several times removed from that era – even if they are still directed by some of the faces of it.

You could argue that questioning the integrity of teenage sensation Paul Seixas, who is due to make his Tour debut this year, or established superstar Tadej Pogačar, also has an unintended consequence in that it creates distrust and is unfair in nature. A self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.

But the wound is still deep. People have left the sport because of it. Some return, some don't, or can't. The correlation between doping, short and long-term health issues, including death, hasn't really been properly documented. "ASO sold out years ago when they welcomed Armstrong back in 2009. It's just a business for them. And entertainment for the fans. Who cares who gets hurt?" says my learned colleague, who has left the proverbial ring.

Business is perhaps the key word. One of my key takeaways from the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) report that Cookson commissioned as UCI president was money or lack thereof within a sport wholly dependent on sponsorship. Armstrong for a while was seemingly the antidote to that.

Is he back? Not according to the sport's gatekeepers that reply to emails. And is he still box office gold? Hollywood appears to think so. Watch this space.