Trailer
Plot summary
Lewis Thomas drives from California toward Colorado to collect Venna, a childhood friend he has a crush on. In Salt Lake City he finds that his estranged brother Fuller is in jail, bails him out, and takes him along. Fuller has a CB radio fitted in the car, and once they are on the road he pushes Lewis into a prank. Lewis pretends on the radio to be a woman named Candy Cane and arranges to meet a trucker who goes by Rusty Nail at a motel where the brothers are spending the night. Room 17, the one he names, belongs to a businessman Fuller clashed with at the front desk. From the adjoining room, the brothers hear an argument and a scuffle.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Joy Ride (2001)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For an alternate ending where Rusty Nail's truck explodes, a water tower stood behind the burning truck at a cost of over $100,000; the plan was for the truck to hit it and the water to put out the flames so Rusty Nail's survival looked believable, but time constraints stopped the scene being filmed.
- Pushed to reach mature audiences rather than families, John Dahl's Joy Ride became one of the first R-rated films on Disney+ and the first horror title released on that platform in the United States, in April 2022.
- Leelee Sobieski filmed two romantic interludes for Joy Ride, one with Steve Zahn and one with Paul Walker, during the shooting and re-shooting of the film, and both were cut.
- When Leelee Sobieski was announced as the star in July 1999, the other parts were still uncast, though Tobey Maguire and Steve Zahn were understood to have been offered roles.
