How to Eat Fried Worms (2006) on Netflix
Billy Forrester, the new kid in the fifth grade, clashes with class bully Joe Guire. Joe bets him that he cannot eat ten worms on Saturday without throwing up.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb5.4/106,523 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes61%
Trailer
Plot summary
Billy Forrester's family has just moved to a new town for his father Mitch's new job. Billy, who has a weak stomach, begins fifth grade and immediately becomes a target for Joe Guire and his gang. When worms spill out of Billy's thermos, he claims he eats them all the time, and the boys start calling him Wormboy. Joe proposes a bet: Billy must eat ten worms on Saturday, the last by seven, without throwing up, or walk the school halls with worms in his pants. Only Erika Tansy takes Billy's side; the other boys follow Joe, whose ring is rumored to be poisonous.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about How to Eat Fried Worms (2006)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The project spent years in development hell, passing from Universal (which put it in turnaround) to Nickelodeon Movies, which replaced Schlamme with Joe Nussbaum and then dropped the film entirely, until Walden Media finally stepped in to finance and produce it.
- Screenwriter John August took the job as his first ever paid screenwriting assignment, working alongside original director Thomas Schlamme through four drafts, but the two never connected creatively.
- John August declined to take a Writers Guild screenwriting credit on the finished film because so little of his original screenplay survived into the final version.
- In the book the characters are four boys hanging around during the summertime, and Billy has to eat fifteen worms in fifteen days; the terms of the bet are fifty dollars, which he intends to use to buy a dirt bike.
SPOILER
Unlike in the film, where the bet ends in a tie, in the book Billy's parents eventually find out about it, and he ultimately wins it.
