Looking For Eric
Ok everyone knows that a sportsman's time at the top of their profession is very limited so you'd argue that it's possibly best to have a back up plan for when you retire.
However moving from sport to movies seems like a bit of and adventurous leap but that hasn't stopped Eric Cantona who returns to the big screen this week.
Looking For Eric, which is directed by Ken Loach, sees the United legend play himself and offers life advice to postman and football fanatic Steve whose life is spiraling out of control.
So FemaleFirst takes a look at some of the successful sportsmen that have found a second career on the big screen.
He may have only made one movie but no one can forget basketball legend Michael Jordan's move onto the big screen with Space Jam.
The film saw him team up with Looney Tunes for the part animation/part live action movie in 1996, which was inspired by the 1993 Nike advert.
Ok so there wasn't much acting required a Jordan played himself but the movie was a huge hit and grossed over $230 million at the global box office.
Vinnie Jones retired from professional football back in 1999 and he hasn't sat around doing nothing, oh no, he has carved out rather a successful acting career for himself.
On the pitch Jones had become known as the hardman of football and those were the roles that came his way, kicking off with Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
In the early days of his acting career Jones was a busy boy as Guy Ritchie cast him for a second time in Snatch as Bullet Tooth Tony.
Then, rather amazingly, Hollywood came knocking and he found himself starring alongside the likes of Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie and John Travolta in Gone in Sixty Seconds and Swordfish.
After a couple of years of some questionable choices he got his first taste of the big budget blockbuster when he landed the role of Juggernaut in X-Men: The Last Stand.
And a busy year faces Jones with Year One, Not Another Not Another Movie and Smokin' Aces: Blowback are all due to be released.
Unfortunately O.J Simpson is known for other things nowadays back in the late sixties he was a very successful American Football player, moving into movies just before he retired.
He mixed television roles in TV mini series Roots with big screen appearances in The Cassandra Crossing and disaster classic The Towering Inferno, which saw him sharing the screen with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.
He went on to start up his own film production company.
Other big named sportsmen that have ventured onto the big screen include Lance Armstrong, he appeared in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and You, Me and Dupree, Carl Lewis and Antonio Tarver who appeared in Rocky Balboa in 2006.
Looking For Eric is released 12th June.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Eric Cantona