Last week I was having a conversation with another movie web site guy whose name you would all recognize about Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant. These guys were part of The State, and Reno 911 – but they also wrote The Pacifier and Taxi and Herbie: Fully Loaded. The discussion we had was whether these guys were just whores, or if they were using their uncanny understanding of the garbage Hollywood likes to ingratiate themselves and get better projects made. I think it’s a little bit of both (because honestly, you have to be a massive DVDA whore to write The Pacifier), and their new project, Balls of Fire, does bear that out to an extent.
It’s a ping pong movie (eerily timely with Rockstar Games’ new ping pong next gen game hitting. I wish I was joking), and now it has a villain – Christopher Walken, the man who will appear in your child’s 4th grade Christmas pageant if you meet his quote, will play Fang, a crime lord who loves ping pong. Dan Fogler, a Broadway fella, will be the disgraced player recruited by the CIA to infiltrate Fang’s tournament. Garant will direct.