Mississippi Grind May Not Have Been Financed Without Ryan Reynolds

Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Mississippi Grind” is one of the best films ever made about gambling. This means it’s actually about losing, and that’s not a subject that sends folks flocking to the multiplex. This doesn’t mean “Mississippi Grind” is a drag; it’s a lively two-hander about two losers wending their way through the South in search of that ever elusive jackpot. But, as we see in the film, the high of even a big win vanishes rapidly. Ultimately, you return to your life and the mess you’ve probably made of it (gamblers aren’t the most reliable of spouses/parents), and the losing resumes.

That’s basically the story of “Mississippi Grind,” which, unsurprisingly, made the project difficult to finance. Yes, Boden and Fleck had a terrific screenplay, and could point to the rave reviews for their first two features, “Half Nelson” and “Sugar,” as proof that they could potentially generate decent box office throughout awards season (the former earned Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), but financiers were unlikely to take a risk on an uncommercial movie like this unless they could attract a semi-bankable name.

When Boden and Fleck first went looking for cash to make “Mississippi Grinding,” they had Ben Mendelsohn cast as the hard-up protagonist Gerry. He was perfect because he’s both handsome and naturally downcast. He looks like he knows from losing. But while Mendelsohn was very much in demand after his bravura performance in David Michôd’s 2010 crime drama “Animal Kingdom,” he wasn’t a box office draw in the U.S. Since Boden and Fleck, who place a high premium on realism, were looking to shoot on location in the South (occasionally in operating casinos), their budget would be prohibitively high unless they found a co-lead who exuded movie star charisma.

And that’s when they hit a bright, smiling jackpot named Ryan Reynolds.

In a 2015 interview with IndieWire two months prior to the film’s dump of a domestic theatrical release (via a still young A24), Fleck discussed the frustration of having landed a great actor seemingly on the verge of stardom, but not yet recognizable enough to loosen financiers’ purse strings.

According to Fleck:

“I think that next year maybe or not long after, Ben Mendelsohn’s name and face alone will be able to trigger significant financing. But at that time people didn’t really know who he was outside of Australia. He was just kind of that interesting character actor who popped up every now and then.”

The film’s fortunes changed dramatically when they found their charismatic Curtis to offset Mendelsohn’s much more reserved Gerry. “[I]t wasn’t a slam dunk, but then thankfully Ryan Reynolds stepped up,” said Fleck. “And he is a movie star, he did trigger the financing. And he’s also terrific.”

Though Reynolds should’ve been a big enough name to get the film a healthy theatrical release in the U.S., it never went wider than 46 theaters in the fall of 2015 and crapped out with a $423,000 domestic gross (thus falling far short of recouping its $7.1 million budget). Had A24 waited until the spring of the following year, they could’ve piggybacked on Reynolds’ superstar breakthrough with “Deadpool.” But maybe now that the whole wide world is going gaga for “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Reynolds’ legion of fans will finally roll the dice on his best film to date.