GAME PLAN

Walt Disney Pictures The Game Plan, according to material provided by the studio, began when producers Gordon Gray and Mark Ciardi—partners in Mayhem Pictures, the production team behind uplifting Disney sports melodramas The Rookie, Miracle, and Invincible, all based on real life events—“got a wild idea.” They thought it would be a lot of fun to try something completely different—a comedy starring former professional wrestler turned actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Working with Mayhem development executive Nichole Millard, the trio says they were quickly inspired.














“We love movies about the triumph of an underdog, but that’s not exactly what you think about when it comes to ‘The Rock’,” said Gray. “So we started thinking about that perspective. We also knew that Dwayne had played football at the University of Miami, and that he was the father of a young girl. So we sat down with Nichole Millard to come up with a story that might combine all those elements. And that evolved into The Game Plan.”

There’s just one problem. The Game Plan has been made several times before, four in fact. Twice under the name of the Damon Runyon short story it’s based on, Little Miss Marker, and once as Sorrowful Jones, starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. The 1962 film 40 Pounds of Trouble, starring Tony Curtis and Suzanne Pleshette and filmed on location in Disneyland, is also based on Runyon’s story.









In The Game Plan, Joe “The King” Kingman is the freewheeling, shallow, self-absorbed quarterback of the Boston Rebels football team. His carefully structured world, however, is turned upside down when Peyton Kelly (Madison Pettis), the eight year old daughter he never knew he had, appears at his front door and tells him she's in need of a place to stay while her mom, Joe’s long-lost ex, is off saving lives in Africa.

In Little Miss Marker and the Hope-Ball remake, freewheeling, shallow, self-absorbed bookie Sorrowful Jones has his carefully structured life turned upside down when left in possession of “Marky” (Shirley Temple in the original 1934 film), a little girl whose gambling addicted father leaves her as a marker for a bet he doesn’t have the cash to cover. After loosing the bet, he commits suicide, and Jones is left with the child.










Both Kingman and Jones are surrounded by a cadre of colorful characters, none of whom, with Kingman’s case the one exception, would ever be considered candidates for father of the year. Joe’s posse comprises his hard playing, both on and off the field, teammates. Sorrowful’s companions are all loveable Runyonesque crooks and thugs.

In both stories, the winsome young waifs touch the hearts of these gruff, rough, and tumble characters bringing out their softer, kinder, gentler sides and, in the case of Joe and Sorrowful, their fatherly instincts. Additionally, both Kingman and Jones find love along the way.










There are many more virtually identical comparisons between The Game Plan and its predecessors, but you get the idea. The only real difference between this 21st century telling of the story and the four earlier films is that at least the producers of those films credited Runyon for creating the original source material.