Producer James Presson (The Plague) has joined Humpty: The American Dream, a bawdy biopic parody from directors Maxwell Narevansky and Carl Frye (Ruts!). Both directors are producing through their American company With Pleasure Cinema Group.
The news was announced ahead of the project’s debut at the Fantasia International Film Festival’s Frontier Co-Production Market in Montreal from July 22-25.
“Our main goal in the marketplace is to raise millions of dollars by connecting with potential investors and other potential partners,” Canadian producer partner Taylor Nodrick (Ghoul Nexus) told Variety. “Also, as we begin casting, we hope that participating in the market will increase the overall profile of the film.”
Nodrik, Frye and Narevansky, who is also a screenwriter, will join Presson (whose TV credits include “Ray Donovan” and “For All Mankind”) and Alison Moses, the producer of “Ruts!,” which won a bronze Audience Award in the international feature category at the 2024 Fantasia Festival.
Nodrick, who works at the Calgary Underground Film Festival, has been a fan of “Rats!” since its early days. While in Calgary, he told filmmakers he wanted to work on their next project. “Maxwell and Karl sat me down and told me the story of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and their vision for creating an original, beautifully crafted comedy that parodies the biopic genre while also working as a standalone blockbuster,” said Nodrick.
The filmmakers told Variety that they wanted to give audiences the “complete story” of Humpty’s rise before his historic downfall, and said they drew visual inspiration from ’70s fantasy and erotic Italian cinema. Because “audiences don’t want the same thing.” They teased that Luke Wilcox and other familiar faces from “Rats!” He also appears on “Humpty” with famous comedians.
Narevansky met Generic Animal through the YouTube series Colors, was drawn to his songwriting, and began communicating regularly about their work. Generic Animal is composing the music and translating Narevansky’s lyrics into Italian, and “will perform his expository musical narration as a minstrel that sets the tone of the story and breaks it up,” the writer said.
