DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story

Rawson Marshall Thurber’s first feature does not end the way it was written. In the first cut Average Joe’s lost the final: White Goodman eliminated Peter LaFleur and the picture faded out. Test audiences rejected that, so the sudden death round and the victory were shot afterwards; the discarded ending survives on the DVD with Thurber’s commentary. The scene after the credits, where a heavy Goodman blames Chuck Norris for his state, belongs to the same story. Ben Stiller has said he treats Goodman as a relative of Tony Perkis, the part he played in Heavyweights. The German co production has a German rival team to match: David Hasselhoff coaches Blitzkrieg. The tournament is called by the commentary pair, Gary Cole and Jason Bateman, and Hank Azaria plays the young Patches O’Houlihan. The channel the film invented became real: citing this 2004 comedy in its own announcement, ESPN turned ESPNU into ESPN8 The Ocho for a single day on 8 August 2017. The 20 million dollar production took 168.4 million dollars worldwide. A good fit if knowing the victory was a reshoot does not spoil it for you and you will stay for the Goodman scene after the credits. Not for you if you want the laughs to come from the court rather than from the commentary desk.