Linda Cardellini, Edi Patterson, Tim Heidecker and Toby Huss will star in David Gordon Green’s “Nutcrackers.” They join the previously announced Ben Stiller, who will play a work-obsessed man who travels to rural Ohio to look after his four nephews after their parents die in a car accident.
Heidecker will play a local deputy, Patterson has been cast as an orphan profiteer, Huss portrays an eccentric empty-nester millionaire and Cardellini takes on the role of a social worker who helps Stiller’s character on his journey to find a home for the boys. The film is based on a script by Leland Douglas and was developed by Rough House Pictures.
Rivulet Films’ Rob Paris and Mike Witherill, Red Hour Films’ Stiller and John Lesher, and Rough House Pictures’ Nate Meyer are producing. Rivulet fully financed the film, which recently wrapped production outside of Cincinnati.
Cardellini is currently in production on the Netflix dark comedy “No Good Deed” for Liz Feldman, who created “Dead to Me,” which Cardellini also starred in and earned an Emmy nomination for. Her credits include “Brokeback Mountain,” “Avengers: Endgame” and “Green Book.”
Patterson is best known for co-starring in “The Righteous Gemstones.” Other notable credits include “Vice Principals,” “Knives Out” and “Between Two Ferns: The Movie.”
Heidecker is an actor, comedian and musician who has appeared in films such as “Bridesmaids,” “Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie” and “Us.”
Huss’ credits include “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” voiceover work on the long-running animated series “King of the Hill” and “Dickinson.” He appeared on “Halt and Catch Fire” and co-starred in “Halloween,” which Green directed.
Glad to see Green is off the horror franchise crap, hopefully this turns out well. All of his TV comedies with Danny McBride are very funny, although this sounds like it will be more subdued comedy.
After successfully reviving one legendary horror franchise and not quite managing to relaunch another, David Gordon Green needed a “bit of a palate cleanser.”
Since Halloween, his 2018 reboot of the John Carpenter slasher pic, Green has become a bit of a go-to-guy for mid-budget horror masters Blumhouse, delivering a full trilogy of new Halloweens — with Halloween Kills in 2021 and Halloween Ends in 2022 — as well as last year’s The Exorcist: Believer, an unsuccessful attempt to bring back the spinning-head world of demonic possession created by William Friedkin in his 1973 classic.
But after six years of screams and jump scares, “it felt like a time to reset,” Green says. “After doing a run of horror movies, I felt like switching gears.”
What Green did next was Nutcrackers, a family-friendly comedy starring Ben Stiller as Mike, an uptight workaholic who is forced to take over guardianship of his rambunctious, newly orphaned nephews. The holiday plot revolves around Mike slowly discovering their artistic talent — their mother was a gifted ballet dancer — then resolving to help them stage an original version of The Nutcracker for the town. Nutcrackers opens the 2024 Toronto Film Festival on Sept. 5. UTA Independent Film Group is selling worldwide.
“I have twin 13-year-old sons, and they’re always bugging me because they’re not allowed to see the movies I make,” says Green. “So I got to thinking about the movies I loved at 13, films like Uncle Buck and Overboard. The impetus of this movie was to try and connect to the mindset of my kids but through the movies of my own youth.”
But Nutcrackers is also, slyly, an attempt to test whether the Blumhouse model for horror movies — tightly controlling the budget but giving directors creative freedom — can work for comedy.
“I’ve had this wonderful relationship with Jason [Blum] and the team over there, and they really educated me on the value and marketability of independent horror films,” says Green. “Now, I don’t want to be making horror films for the rest of my life, but maybe I can apply a lot of these same methods, making films that are both commercial and creatively liberating, to other genres. [Blumhouse] isn’t doing that with comedy; nobody seems to be.”
There’s a comedy gap in the market. Focus Features did decent business with the Woody Harrelson sports comedy Champions ($16 million domestic), and Thelma, the senior-citizen action spoof, earned a respectable $8.7 million for Magnolia, but low-budget indie comedy breakouts have become a rarity.
Nutcrackers opened the Toronto Film Festival and now is poised to become the first splashy acquisition deal on the ground since the festival began. Hulu is in final talks to pay eight figures for the family comedy directed by David Gordon Green and starring Ben Stiller, Linda Cardellini, Edi Patterson, Tim Heidecker and Toby Hussles. Producers are Rivulet’s Rob Paris and Mike Witherill, and Rough House’s Nate Meyer. Hulu will release it for Christmas.
The Leland Douglas-scripted comedy stars Stiller as a work-obsessed city slicker who is forced to move to rural Ohio to take care of his sister’s children after her sudden passing. To his astonishment, these blue-collar kids are skilled ballet dancers, and he finds an outlet for their endless energy. What begins as a short trip to find them foster care turns into a gradual realization that this is where he belongs.
Newcomers and real-life siblings Homer, Ulysses, Atlas and Arlo Janson play the youngsters. The pic was shot on the Janson family’s Ohio farm. Green is longtime family friends with their mom, Karey Williams, from film school, and he was inspired to create the film based on their lives. It was shot in their house, with their animals and at their dance studio.
Nutcrackers got a rousing audience reaction, and it marks the first film in seven years that Stiller has starred in. He has busied himself producing and directing the Apple TV+ series Severance and the Showtime limited series Escape at Dannamora, for which he won a DGA Award for directing. It also takes Green off a recent horror track that included the Halloween and Exorcist revivals.
UTA Independent Film Group reps worldwide rights on the film. Rivulet Films fully financed, and Rough House developed it with the scribe.
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Nutcrackers (2024)
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