Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004) on Netflix
Peter La Fleur owns Average Joe's, a rundown gym. His rival White Goodman wants to demolish it. Peter needs $50,000 in 30 days, so he enters a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.7/10289,285 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes72%
Trailer
Plot summary
Peter La Fleur runs Average Joe's, a small, rundown gym. When he falls behind on its mortgage, the property is bought by White Goodman, the owner of the Globo Gym across the street who wants to demolish the building for a parking structure. The attorney handling the account, Kate Veatch, gives Peter thirty days to come up with $50,000, and Goodman's advances toward her are rebuffed. Peter, his employees Dwight Baumgarten and Owen Dittman, and the gym's members try to raise the money. A car wash fails. Gordon Pibb suggests a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament with a $50,000 prize, and Justin Redman finds an old training film about the dodgeball legend Patches O'Houlihan. Goodman forms a team of his own, the Purple Cobras, while the elderly Patches offers to coach Peter's group.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ben Stiller's character White Goodman was an intentional copy-and-paste of his character Tony Perkis Jr. from Heavyweights. Stiller simply redid that performance believing no one had seen the earlier film, and learned too late that it had a large cult following.
SPOILER
When the film was screened to test audiences, the original ending had Average Joe's lose to Globo Gym in the final match. After that went down badly, the sudden death match, Average Joe's winning the tournament and White going back to obesity were all added.- On August 8, 2017, ESPN paid homage to its lampooned portrayal in Dodgeball by airing a day-long "ESPN8: The Ocho" marathon on its college sports channel ESPNU, filled with unconventional sports including trampoline dodgeball, darts, disc golf, kabaddi and roller derby.
- In 2005 two New York City screenwriters, David Price and Ernando Ashoka Thomas, sued Fox and Thurber in federal court, claiming their unproduced screenplay Dodgeball: The Movie had been infringed; they said Thurber may have had access to it, finished a month before his.
- Ben Stiller was nominated for the Worst Actor Golden Raspberry for Dodgeball, together with four other films he made in 2004: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Along Came Polly, Envy and Starsky & Hutch.
- Dodgeball was made for $20 million and grossed $168.4 million after its theatrical release by 20th Century Fox on June 18, 2004.
