The Farrellys Are Working On a ‘Kingpin 2’
I can see the title now: Kingpin I I, where the two Is are bowling pins and it looks like a 7-10 split.
Seemingly out of nowhere, work has apparently begun on a sequel to Kingpin, the 1996 comedy that helped launch the Farrelly brothers’ careers as two of Hollywood’s biggest comedy directors of the ’90s. The film starred Woody Harrelson as a disgraced champion bowler who lost his hand and his career many years earlier; it became the first film Peter and Bobby directed together. While it didn’t break box office records — it only grossed about $32 million against a $25 million budget — it got surprisingly strong reviews, and helped solidify their budding careers after the success of Dumb and Dumber (which they co-wrote but only Peter directed). There’s Something About Mary came next, and the Farrellys were officially made.
Although Kingpin was not as big a hit as Dumb and Dumber or There’s Something About Mary, it did well on home video. That could explain why now, 25 years after the release of the film, they are working on a sequel. According to Collider, “the project is in active development with the Farrellys producing at the very least.” The rights to the film belong to “a deep vault of feature film IP owned by Village Roadshow parent Vine Alternative Investments that the company has access to.”
If the Farrellys do direct the sequel, it would be their first as a team since 2014’s Dumb and Dumber To. (Peter Farrelly solo directed the Academy Award-winning Green Book in 2018.) Kingpin’s a very funny movie, but is there enough there for a second two decades later? I guess we’ll see if the project comes together.