Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Mississippi Grind” is one of the best movies ever made about gambling. That means it’s actually about losing, and that’s not a subject that draws people to the multiplex. That doesn’t mean “Mississippi Grind” is a boozy movie; it’s a lively two-hander about two losers who make their way across the South in search of the ever-elusive jackpot. But, as we see in the movie, the excitement of a big win also fades fast. Eventually, you return to your life and the mess you’ve probably made (gamblers aren’t the most trustworthy spouses/parents), and the losing starts all over again.
This is basically the story of “Mississippi Grind,” which, not surprisingly, made it difficult to get the project financed. Yes, Boden and Fleck had a great script, and they can count the rave reviews of their first two films, “Half Nelson” and “Sugar,” as proof that they can do it. potential The film fared well at the box office throughout awards season (the former earned Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), but financiers were unlikely to take a risk on such a non-commercial film unless they could attract a semi-bankable name.
When Boden and Fleck first looked for money to make “Mississippi Grinding,” they cast Ben Mendelsohn to play the down-and-out protagonist Gerry. He was perfect because he’s both handsome and naturally sad. He seems to know how to lose. But Mendelsohn was in great demand after his breakout performance in David Michôd’s 2010 crime drama “Animal Kingdom,” which failed to make a splash at the box office in the U.S. Since Boden and Fleck, who value realism, wanted to shoot on location in the South (sometimes in operational casinos), their budget could be very high, unless they found a co-star who could exude movie-star charisma.
And that’s when they hit the jackpot with a shiny, smiling guy named Ryan Reynolds.
Ryan Reynolds, Film Financing Trigger Man
In a 2015 interview with IndieWire two months before the film’s domestic theatrical release (via the still-young A24):Fleck discussed the frustrations of attaching a great actor to his side who was on the verge of becoming a star but was not yet recognized enough to dent the financiers’ pockets.
According to Fleck:
“I think probably in the next year or so, just the name and face of Ben Mendelsohn will be able to trigger significant financing. But at that time people didn’t really know who he was outside of Australia. He was just an interesting character actor who would turn up occasionally.”
The film’s fortunes changed dramatically when they found the charismatic Curtis to replace Mendelsohn’s more reserved Gerry.”[I]It wasn’t a slam dunk, but thankfully Ryan Reynolds stepped up,” Fleck said. “And he Is He’s a movie star, Did Speed up financing. And that’s great, too.”
While Reynolds should have been a big enough name to give the film a healthy theatrical release in the U.S., it failed to expand beyond 46 theaters in the fall of 2015 and only piled up with a domestic gross of $423,000 (thus falling well short of recouping its $7.1 million budget). If A24 had waited until the spring of next year, they could have capitalized on Reynolds’ superstar success with “Deadpool.” But perhaps now that the whole world is going crazy for “Deadpool and Wolverine,” Reynolds’ legions of fans will finally roll the dice on his best movie yet.
