The holiday season, sandwiched between the fifth Avengers, third Dune and fourth Jumanji, will be something audiences haven’t seen in theaters for some time: A mid-budget, real-life sports movie from one of the major studios.
Paramount and Skydance’s Mr. Irrelevant ended up with a prime Christmas Day wide release — a coveted spot for both commercial and awards season plays — after test screenings conducted at the top of the year. Those screenings saw a score of 95 among men over 35, with an incredibly rare perfect 100 score among women over 35, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter, and an overall score of 92.
Mr. Irrelevant started life as a pitch from writer Nick Santora. Dana Goldberg, then chief creative officer at Skydance, and Don Granger, then heading Skydance Pictures, reached out to Santora, who is behind Skydance’s popular Amazon series Reacher, for sports-related feature film ideas. Santora came back with a movie pitch about John Tuggle, a running back who was the final pick of the 1983 NFL draft. After landing with the New York Giants, Tuggle played just one season, going on to win the New York Giants Special Teams Player of the Year.
Skydance bought Mr. Irrelevant as a pitch, with 50/50 and Warm Bodies filmmaker Jonathan Levine brought on board to direct. David Corenswet, the breakout star of the new Superman films, was tapped to play Tuggle, with Isabel May (Scream 7, 1883) playing Tuggle’s love interest. The project was budgeted in the mid-$30 million range and shot in Australia to keep costs low, paving the way for a theatrical release.
