Sprots Guy interview with Rounders authors

[ceczar]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/060420

highlight: explaining mike turning down famke:

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We plead guilty. Biggest mistake of the film, probably of our entire career (please leave out the requisite "Walking Tall" joke, thank you) if only because we were on set and would've gotten to gawk at it for eight hours. As written, the character was a much more regular-looking girl. When John Dahl ended up casting Famke (the producers Ted Demme and Joel Stillerman knew her well), we were too green to see our opportunity. Now, today, believe us, Mike nails her, then after lots of gratuitous nudity, she casually mentions that Worm rang up the debt and Mike is off. It's not that we're monks, just idiots. If you want to know our logic, our admittedly misguided logic, here it is:

A. Mike has already slept with her. You're a guy, so you understand what that means. The edge is off of it, just a little bit.

B. Mike has just found out that he is, after driving the truck, walking the line, staying away from the tables, right back in a giant hole. Worm has put him in serious financial debt to people who know how to collect.

C. For the plot of the film to work, we figured that the debt of money had to seem so important to Mike, so dangerous, so huge, that Mike had to deal with it right away. In hindsight, we were totally wrong. (By the way, neither Ansen nor Travers picked up [on] that one.)

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[DrewDevil]

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Sports Guy: We're in the middle of a poker boom, you guys wrote the definitive poker movie that came out four years too early ... so why the hell can't we have a sequel? Come on, like "Rounders 2" wouldn't make $200 million? I know Matt Damon is crazy-rich at this point, but how could he resist the chance to bring Mike McD back to life? Plus, you have all these celebrities who love playing poker and would love to be involved, like Ben Affleck, who would probably kill himself if you didn't ask him to be in the movie.



Here's my pitch: Mike McD (two-time runner-up in the World Series of Poker in 1999 and 2003) is living at the Palms Casino in Vegas and making a living playing in televised tournaments, running his own online Web site and ripping off celebrities and athletes whenever they come into town. He's a multi-millionaire, a success by any measure; he even hangs out with the Maloofs and Ron Artest, owns a 5 percent stake in the Kings, and dates a former actress (played by Heather Graham) who gets naked with him in a torrid sex scene in the first 10 minutes. And just when he's preparing for the 2007 World Series of Poker, Worm shows up in his life again, along with Worm's brother, Gerbil (played by Ben Affleck, who was available). They're in some deep trouble, the Russian mob is after them for stealing a suitcase of heroin or something.



Being the loyal friend that he is, Mike McD gets dragged into the situation and ends up having sex with Famke Janssen and her sister, played by Anna Kournikova (in a torrid three-way in a hot tub at the "Real World" suite in the Palms) to convince Famke to call off the Russian mob. But Famke slips him the date-rape drug, and before Mike McD wakes up, she's transferred $3 million of his money from his computer to Teddy KGB. Plus, Heather Graham walked in during the three-way (unbeknownst to Mike McD) and decided to move out. Now he's broke and single. When he wakes up, Teddy KGB calls to tell him, "I have your three million, you have to play me for it, I want revenge for the last time we played."



But Mike McD says, "You know what, I'm not playing this game. I don't care about my $3 million any more, and I don't care about Worm or Gerbil -- kill them both, they were crummy friends, anyway. I'm winning my three million back in the World Series of Poker, and then some. But first, I have to go to Cheetahs for the next 20 hours and spend my last $5,000 on lap dances."



So that's the next 15 minutes of the movie -- Mike getting lap dances and drinking Rolling Rocks in the Cheetah's champagne room, followed by the shocking revelation that Gretchen Mol is working there after getting fired from her law firm. He gets her number, but not before she gives him the obligatory, "You're wasting your life" speech. From there, Mike McD goes right to the World Series of Poker, where he ends up at the final table facing Phil Ivey (played by Tiger Woods), Ron Artest (played by O.J. Simpson), Teddy KGB (Malkovich), Worm (Norton), Gerbil (Affleck), Johnny Chan (playing himself) and the Cinderella story of the tournament, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons (played by George Clooney in an unbilled cameo).



And Mike McD gradually knocks everyone out until it's just him and Gerbil, setting up the Damon-Affleck scenario that everyone has been waiting for ... and even though the script calls for Mike McD to win, Damon ends up ad-libbing from the script and letting Affleck win because he feels bad about everything that's happened to Affleck since "Armageddon." But he still made enough second place money ($3 million) to replace what he lost, so he's happy, and the movie ends with a torrid sex scene with Mike McD and Gretchen Mol, followed by him breaking up with her and telling her that he never liked her in the first place. The end.



Whaddya think?



Koppelman & Levien: Is there a question in there, other than the obvious one about your sanity?


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Hilarious.

[FishNChips]

its a nice interview ... covers lots of stuff including "Tilt" and a brief glimpse at the creative disagreements between management and the writers.

Very disappointed that Bill didn't ask THE question "what does Teddy KGB have that he gets all-in with in the last hand."

~FishNChips

[BigBadBabar]

i thought it was obvious he was slowplaying pocket aces again like in the beginning of the movie, then hit his set on the river...?

bbb

[iron81]

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i thought it was obvious he was slowplaying pocket aces again like in the beginning of the movie, then hit his set on the river...?

bbb

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I remember someone saying that his cards flashed after the hand was over: he had T-T for a flopped top set.

[IlliniLou]

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i thought it was obvious he was slowplaying pocket aces again like in the beginning of the movie, then hit his set on the river...?

bbb

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I remember someone saying that his cards flashed after the hand was over: he had T-T for a flopped top set.

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thats right, he has 10-10, if you slow the movie down, he throws the cards at the table and they pop up, the cards flip and you can clearly see it was 10 10

[WayAbvPar]

[ QUOTE ]
its a nice interview ... covers lots of stuff including "Tilt" and a brief glimpse at the creative disagreements between management and the writers.

Very disappointed that Bill didn't ask THE question "what does Teddy KGB have that he gets all-in with in the last hand."

~FishNChips

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I KNEW there was a question he missed...it has been bugging me all day after reading that [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

At least he asked the others so we can forever reference that chat when every time a Rounders thread starts. At least until ESPN cockblocks us and puts it in Insider. Bastards.

[jimmifli]

I enjoyed Rounders 2