A Sure Bet

I have been an executive most of my career. At the time I conceived The Grand, I was embarking on a brief career as an independent producer after being the Exec VP at Phoenix Pictures. In the meantime, Zak Penn had recently finished Incident at Loch Ness and was looking for his next project. I had known Zak for probably ten or so years, having met at our weekly poker game. While an executive, I had endlessly tried to persuade him to write various projects for me, but to no avail. Zak and I had lunch and I pitched him the idea for The Grand. Initially, I had conceived the Larry and Lainie Schwartzman characters, brother/sister poker playing rivals, and the Andy Andrews character. He is a rube who accidentally makes it to the big game and starts taking down top players. I also had a vague idea about our casino, The Rabbitt's Foot, and how its founder was nearly killed by rivals a number of times. That character became Lucky Faro. There were a few other character ideas that didn't make the final cut, but Zak liked the idea and thought that it was something that could be his next directing project. He asked me to outline it, and we started talking about other characters. We needed to create something for Warner Herzog, who had starred in Incident at Loch Ness, and we came up with The German, an extreme gambler of dubious moral character. We also wanted to come up with something for Michael Karnow, a very funny friend of ours who was also in Loch Ness, and so, with Michael's input, we came up with Dr. Werbe, a poker pro and teaching guru whose grasp of the game is tentative at best. Also, as we researched old Vegas, Zak liked the idea of creating a character who represented the old ways of gambling, and LBJ Deuce Fairbanks was born. We wanted Deuce's nostalgia for the old corrupt Vegas to sound good, but when you really thought about it, the old days were pretty crummy and the new way is actually better. As we began to assemble our cast, the number of characters grew as well.

To get things moving, Zak and I brought in his producer from Loch Ness, Gary Marcus, who could help us, as we wrote the scriptment, to keep the various production issues in mind. Zak also thought we should bring in a heavyweight producer who could help wrangle a good cast, so we met with Chris Moore. Chris was in and suggested his friend Ben Affleck, who was playing a lot of tournament poker at the time. We didn't really feel that Ben was right for Larry Schwartzman or Andy Andrews, so we had to create a part that would suit him. We came up with One-Eyed Jack, Lucky Faro's grandson, an addict, womanizer and dreamer, who must enter his own tournament to pay off a debt to keep his casino. Zak and I met with Ben, who had been playing with a lot of the top professionals and had great stories about their personalities and quirks. David Schwimmer also played cards in our game. As we were fleshing out the characters, we wanted to create something for David. Initially, the Larry Schwartzman character was a savant as well as an angry guy. Zak realized that these two characteristics aren't really complimentary, so we came up with the Harold character who has Asperger's syndrome and lives with his mother. (This came from one of our meetings with Ben, who suggested that many of the great poker players lack social skills and may be mildly autistic.) Finally, Zak met with William H. Macy, who had agreed to play Andy Andrews.

Now that we had assembled our leads, Zak and I actually sat down to write the scriptment. Up to this point, we had been working from a detailed character outline with some story suggestions, but Zak felt the story needed real twists and turns. In an afternoon (I think Michael Karnow was there as well), we started to figure out the actual story. Zak had great ideas for unexpected twists and character set-ups, and I did my best just to keep up. The big question that we wrestled with over and over again was, "Who should win the tournament?" Zak and I would advocate for a character, then argue about his or her merits, then start it all over again with a different character. Finally, Zak had a really great idea: as this would be an improvised movie, we could actually let the actors play the final table of our tournament in character, and the winner would be the actual winner in our film. I loved this idea and thought it would help us cast the other actors. Secretly, however, I never thought it would work. I figured that we would actually shoot the "improvised tournament" but then would re-shoot the ending based on which character gave us the maximum humor or pathos.

As things happen in the world of indie film, all of our initial actors left the project. Ben Affleck stopped gambling in real life, so the movie no longer held its appeal for him. Bill Macy started to transition from indie movies to studio films and became too expensive. David Schwimmer got a part in a Broadway show and would be unavailable. Chris Moore also left the project, as he had decided to leave producing for awhile to direct. Our original financiers lost interest. During that time, other cast members came and went, but eventually we got together with Eleven Eleven Films and Insomnia Entertainment, and we were good to shoot. Woody Harrelson came aboard to play One-Eyed Jack, and the rest of the spectacular cast came together. Zak met with Ray Romano, who took a small part - Fred Marsh, Lainie Schwartzman's husband (which was always mentioned in the treatment but as an aside) - and turned it into a larger, more interesting role. The part of Lainie and Larry's father got expanded, and Gabe Kaplan came onboard. Zak came up with the Steve Lavish character to get a cameo from a great comedian, and Michael McKean signed on. Initially, we were going to shoot in February of 2005, but after the cast and financing changes, we ended up shooting in summer of 2006. When it came time to shoot the final sequence to determine who wins the tournament, we stuck to the plan and improvised it, none of us certain what would happen. As it turned out, we ended up with more drama and humor than anything we could have written. It worked out brilliantly, and our little writing stunt, to me, is the most unique feature of our movie. Everybody who worked on this film is really proud of it, and I hope we can reunite this cast someday for another film. Maybe I should take Zak to lunch again.

Matt Bierman has been an executive at Walt Disney Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Phoenix Pictures and Paramount DVD Premieres, and is currently the head of development at Warner Premiere. In between his many executive jobs, he was, briefly, a writer and producer.

The Grand Synopsis

A comedy set in the world of professional poker, The Grand tells the story of six poker players who make it to the final table of the world's most famous high-stakes tournament. Improvised and set in Las Vegas, the film features an eclectic cast that includes Woody Harrelson, Werner Herzog, Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Ray Romano, Dennis Farina, Michael McKean, Richard Kind, Hank Azaria, Chris Parnell, Brett Ratner and Judy Greer. Directed by Zak Penn, written by Zak Penn and Matt Bierman.