Several years ago, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea for a movie. It was the story of the race to be the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, a literal milestone that for a long time was thought impossible. This was a real-life drama that seemingly had everything: three ferociously competitive men on three different continents, all with very different personalities: Wes Santee, a brash cocky American from Kansas nicknamed the “Ashland Antelope” who used brutal childhood abuse by his father to fuel his drive for glory; John Landy, a gentle modest scholarly...