Apparently you can bet on anything. But a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score?
Gambling (especially sports gambling) is everywhere ... except ironically in TV and film
Let’s talk about gambling.
Gambling is not my thing, which puts me out-of-step with the moment. Betting on sports has been legalized and normalized and embraced by the captains of industry who run professional sports leagues, so much so current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has called it an “important source of fan engagement."
Important for whom? Red Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito recently talked about the adverse effects this is having on players, who are hearing from gamblers after every game. “Even games where I pitched well, where they're mad at me because I hit the strikeout over instead of being under.” These messages include threats to players and their families, prompting Giolito to ask: “Is it going to take a player getting assaulted in front of their apartment building by some disgruntled guy who lost a bet for real action to be taken?"
Apparently he brought the issues to Manfred, who was “receptive” to Giolito’s concerns. “Receptive” is one of those words that sounds productive but is actually maddeningly vague and pat. How is Manfred going to put the toothpaste back in the tube, especially when Major League Baseball is an equity investor in DraftKings?
Was it wishful thinking that everything would remain above board and scandal free, even when it comes to the players themselves?
Well, Cleveland Guardians pitcher Emmanuel Clase was just placed on “non-disciplinary paid leave” through August while MLB does a sports betting investigation. That’s in addition to another pitcher on the team, Luis Ortiz, who has been placed on leave for similar reasons.
Maybe there’s nothing there. But gambling introduces doubt to all kinds of situations that might unfold on and off the field.
Who could have foreseen any of these issues?? (Stares into the void)
That question is elephant in the room throughout the four-part HBO docuseries “Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose,” which I reviewed last year. A good documentary for the most part, but it’s conspicuous that the project’s director, who has plenty of questions for Rose about his notorious involvement in sports gambling — which got him banned from baseball for life — and yet he never asks Rose his thoughts about any of these more recent developments. Rose died in September at 83, so I guess we’ll never know.
There’s a long history of people gambling on sports. But gambling on a film’s Rotten Tomatoes score is a new one, a development I now know about courtesy of the Hollywood industry newsletter The Ankler.
I’m not going to name the site that facilitates these bets (why give them free advertising?) but The Ankler says that for a “coterie of gamblers, they’re betting on the incremental shifts in consensus” among film critics whose reviews of any given film are compiled by Rotten Tomatoes and deemed a certain percentage “fresh” or “rotten.”
One of those gamblers is a former pharmaceutical exec who made $8,425 wagering on the new “Smurfs” film, which is “just a fraction of the $290,000 he’s made betting on Rotten Tomatoes scores in the last year and three months.” He told The Ankler: “I don’t know many critics that make a lot of money off of writing, so it is amusing to me there’s someone else making hundreds of thousands of dollars off something that I basically do for free, and for the love of it.” Yes, soooo amusing (cries). Can I give this entire paragraph one of Rotten Tomatoes’ signature green splats?!
Forget gambling on a Rotten Tomatoes score, where are the projects about today’s betting landscape?
For the most part, Hollywood hasn’t been greenlighting contemporary stories about gambling. “I’d imagine something like that would be relevant today with the way sports gambling has made its way into mainstream sports in a major way,” my former Chicago Tribune colleague Shakeia Taylor pointed out when we collaborated on a piece about sports movies. “It’s in everything now.” She’s right.
A couple of older films do come to mind. 1988’s “Eight Men Out,” the John Sayles’ film based on the true story of the infamous 1919 World Series, for which players on the Chicago White Sox took payments from interested parties to throw the games, garnering them the Black Sox nickname. It’s a cautionary tale about underpaid players trying — badly — to balance the scales that favored the owners.
“White Men Can’t Jump” is another one — not the pointless 2023 remake for Hulu starring Jack Harlow and Sinqua Walls, but the original 1992 version starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, the latter of whom plays an inveterate gambler. It negatively affects everything in his life, including his relationship with his effervescent girlfriend, played by Rosie Perez.
The film is from writer-director Ron Shelton, who was a master of shaggy dog sports movies of the late 20th Century centering on semi-ridiculous, semi-charming men clearly past their prime aiming for one last shot at greatness — or at least half-baked redemption. “White Men Can’t Jump” is about an unlikely pair who team up to hustle any takers in antic pickup basketball games played on outdoor recreation courts in Los Angeles. It shows up on Shelton’s resume sandwiched between the soulful minor league romance of “Bull Durham” and the dusty pro golfing dreams of “Tin Cup.”
Shelton’s gifts for the sports comedy aren’t much appreciated these days. Maybe that’s because it’s just harder to stumble across older films on television during a weekend afternoon, which is how so many of us used to discover movies years after they came out.
But I was thinking about Shelton recently while watching “Stick,” Apple’s new series starring Owen Wilson as a down-on-his-luck pro golfer aiming for one last shot at greatness. Or at least half baked redemption.
The show isn’t doing anything groundbreaking. It’s just a really good version of this kind of thing. And “by this kind of thing” I mean Ron Shelton-esque storytelling. (The series was recently renewed for a second season.)
Going in, I wasn’t optimistic about “Stick” being any good, which is why the idea of wagering on critical reception to any show or movie is ridiculous.
The creator of “Stick” is “Ford vs. Ferrari” screenwriter Jason Keller, and most TV critics were politely dismissive of the show. I was an outlier in really liking it, but I was also struck by the fact that nobody mentioned Shelton’s “Tin Cup” in their reviews, because the inspiration is so blatant. There’s a scene wherein Wilson’s character is challenged to a trick shot — in a upscale bar, no less — which is either a ripoff of a similar scene in “Tin Cup” or a nod to it. I’m going with the latter.
“Tin Cup” has an easygoing, laidback romantic comedy energy but with just enough propulsion to keep you locked in. Starring Kevin Costner and Renee Russo, it’s about a shambolic golf pro who once had big promise before his life fell apart. At the movie’s outset, he’s living in an RV parked at a dusty, rural driving range in Texas where he “works,” which really just means hanging out with his loyal pal and former caddy, played by Cheech Marin. His nemesis is a slick but lesser golfer (Don Johnson) who has nevertheless had far more career success, which is just more salt in the wound. (Again, “Stick” borrows this detail, too.) Then Russo’s psychologist — a stunner! — comes around looking for a lesson or two, and that’s enough to push the guy’s life ever-so-gently in a new direction.
Sports movies have become an endangered species, along with most mid-budget films. (I’m not counting the recent “Happy Gilmore” sequel on Netflix; recycled IP is just … recycled IP.)
Instead, most ideas that might have been a movie are now turned into streaming shows. I can’t complain; I like “Stick,” as well as Netflix’s “Running Point,” which also premiered this year. I’m less optimistic about the return of “Ted Lasso” on Apple. (The idea that a TV series can’t reach an end is … exhausting.) And Peacock is developing a comedy about the WNBA with basketball player and ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike called “The W.” There’s no guarantee the show will be greenlit — most shows in development aren’t — but my curiosity is piqued.
It’s notable, though, that none of these series have acknowledged the presence, let alone the adverse effects, of league-endorsed gambling. To paraphrase The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield: Hollywood decision-makers have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
I’d imagine bookmakers are less-than-pleased with the corporatization of sports gambling’s once underground marketplace, and that was explored in “Bookie” on HBO Max. I didn’t watch the short-lived Chuck Lorre comedy, but it’s the one recent show to contend with any of this.
It’s in everything now, as Shakeia said. Except TV shows and movies.