DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story
Short description
Peter LaFleur runs Average Joe's, a shabby local gym with a small, oddball membership. His business is threatened when White Goodman, the self-satisfied owner of the flashy Globo Gym chain, tries to buy the place and absorb it into his fitness empire. Kate Veatch, an attorney sent by the bank to handle the takeover, ends up siding with Peter instead. With the gym deep in debt, Peter and his friends learn that the prize at a dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas would cover what they owe, so they enter, despite having no real experience, helped by a veteran player named Patches O'Houlihan. A win would put them up against Goodman's own team and settle the fate of the gym.
Rawson Marshall Thurber wrote and directed the film, his first feature, released in 2004. Vince Vaughn plays Peter, Christine Taylor plays Kate, Ben Stiller plays White Goodman and also produced with Stuart Cornfeld, and Rip Torn appears as Patches O'Houlihan, with Justin Long and Stephen Root among a cast of 52 credited performers.
Made for about 20 million dollars, the film took roughly 168 million worldwide, a strong return. Audiences rate it 6.7 out of 10 on IMDb from around 284,000 votes, and 6.4 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller pool, while a critics' score of 6.3 from 165 reviews sits close to both. Thurber went on to direct We're the Millers, Central Intelligence, Skyscraper and Red Notice.
What's left behind the scenes
- Justin Long was cut on the eyebrow by the very first screwdriver thrown at him. All the screwdrivers were made of rubber, but the rubber in the first one turned out to be excessively stiff.
- Before filming began, all the cast members trained to play dodgeball for a month.
- An alternative ending to the film can be found on the DVD. The Average Joe's team loses the final match, and a voiceover during the end credits states that the athletes will have to return home empty-handed. This ending was reshot due to audience reaction at a preview screening.
- In one scene, the Average Joe's team is shown in the locker room before the final match. All the athletes are wearing long pants, while the heroine, Christine Taylor, is wearing shorts. The actress had long sweatpants, but she flatly refused to wear them, calling them “monstrous.”
- The phrase in Spanish that Peter says as he enters the hotel room translates to: “How do I get to the library?”
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
