Who was it who said ‘never tell me the odds’? And was it uttered in some distant galaxy’s asteroid hail, or just the butt of a colonoscopy joke? The great gambol of Uncut Gems (2019) lay in its play around predetermined outcomes: how could the Celtics lose? How did you think this would end? The Safdie Brothers saw in sporting spectacle an elementally stressful catharsis: no matter who wins, someone loses. Accept the mystery or obsess over it—some things are set in stones.
Returning to the well of outsize televised ambition and strong predictor shows, A24 has announced The Smashing Machine, the story of real-life MMA fighter Mark Kerr, with WWE veteran Dwayne Johnson slated to play the lead. The film will mark the solo directing debut of Benny Safdie, who also wrote the screenplay. A24 will produce and finance alongside Safdie’s Out For the Count, Eli Bush, and David Koplan.
The news follows the announcement of Josh Safdie’s own solo effort in the orbit of sporting odds, an as-yet-untitled film about memorabilia collectors featuring beloved collaborator Adam Sandler and (!) “live baseball,” though delayed due to the strike. Co-written by both brothers, the film will be produced at Netflix, with Megan Thee Stallion attached to co-star. The split seems amicable: “[T]here’s things that I want to explore that don’t necessarily align right now with Josh,” Safdie noted to GQ. So it’s a divide and conquer mentality. He wants to tell this story, he can go and do that. I’m going to go and do a couple of other things. It seems like a natural progression for how things have happened.”