Green Book and Dumb and Dumber filmmaker Peter Farrelly casts Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser for the action comedy Balls Up.
Does Paul Walter Hauser ever sleep? He’s currently starring in Pixar’s biggest hit in years, Inside Out 2, and he’s attached to numerous films, including Fantastic Four, The Naked Gun, a Chris Farley biopic, Press Your Luck, and Doug Liman’s upcoming action comedy for AppleTV+ The Instigators. I’m sure there’s more, but let’s focus on the newest addition to his Hollywood dance card, Balls Up, an action comedy from Peter Farrelly (Green Book, Ricky Stanicky, Dumb and Dumber) co-starring Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg and Hauser lead the film, with Farrelly directing. Amazon MGM is the studio.
Balls Up presents a curious plot. The story revolves around two American executives who get the boot for sabotaging a client sponsorship and decide to use their free tickets to a professional soccer match. After a few drinks too many, the duo finds themselves on the run while being hunted by every person across the country. Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese of Deadpool & Wolverine fame wrote the script, with David Ellison of Skydance producing alongside Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, and Andrew Muscato. Wernick and Reese also produce.
After producing four films together, Peter Farrelly and Amazon MGM Studios are old friends. The filmmaker’s latest comedy, Ricky Stanicky, streams on Prime Video, and it’s worth your time to check it out. Ricky Stanicky stars John Cena, Zac Efron, and Andrew Santino. The film revolves around three childhood friends who invent an imaginary friend, Ricky Stanicky, to get them out of trouble. Twenty years later, they still use the nonexistent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behavior. When it’s time for Ricky to make a flesh-and-blood appearance, the trio must hire an actor to play their imaginary friend.
Peter Farrelly’s Balls Up will get plenty of attention not only for the pairing of Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser but also for having Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese penning the script. Wernick and Reese’s upcoming Marvel film, Deadpool & Wolverine, is expected to break the box office in ways the industry hasn’t seen from the superhero genre in a while. The film pairs Ryan Reynolds with Hugh Jackman for the bromance of the century, and Marvel zombies (including myself) are already lining up to get a piece of the action.
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