A Funny, Emotional Tale on Fatherhood in ‘Delivery Man’
In the film, David Wozniak (Vaughn) has always led a simple life. A delivery driver for his family’s meat company, he is seemingly content existing in a state of perpetual mediocrity. While David has a good heart, charming everyone he comes in contact with, he is immature, unfocused, in serious debt and in desperate need of some sense of direction in his life.
But when he finds out he is the biological father of 533 children and 142 of them are suing to learn his identity, everything changes, and David decides he wants to do the right thing and for once, be held accountable for his actions.
Written for the screen and directed by Ken Scott, “Delivery Man” is a re-telling of the 2011 French-Canadian comedy “Starbuck,” which was also directed by Scott. With a title derived from a notorious breeding bull with a record-setting number of offspring, the film is about an unremarkable guy who wakes up one day to find he has fathered 533 children. Expanding on the original story with humor and heart, “Delivery Man” revisits this seemingly unlikely, but ultimately very possible tale of fatherhood and family.
Scott recalls, “The idea came from my co-screenwriter, Martin Petit, who had this idea about a man who had many children. We wanted to write a comedy about fatherhood so we went for what we considered something extreme — a fertility donor who has 150 children. One month into the project, it was all over the media that a donor had discovered he had fathered 400 children! We were speechless and realized that our mere 150 was nothing compared to reality. So we actually had to bring up the numbers. We focused on creating a story that explores fatherhood in a playful and credible way.”
“Starbuck” premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, where it was selected as runner-up for the People’s Choice Award. The film went on to be named Most Popular Canadian Film at the 2011 Vancouver Film Festival and upon its theatrical release, became the most successful Quebec-made film that year.
The international popularity of “Starbuck” attracted the attention of many Hollywood producers who wanted to re-make the film for American audiences. Scott says, “I wanted to be there as a director and as a writer to make sure that this delicate balance between drama, emotion and comedy wasn’t compromised. Not many filmmakers have the opportunity to redo the same movie a second time. But I love the story.”
Although “Delivery Man” is a remake, it was important to the filmmakers that the American version not be an identical regurgitation of the original. Scott says, “The goal of the remake is to basically take the story and to integrate it with American culture. For me, it was very important to make sure that we were not simply copying something. It had to come from a real place.”
On its surface, “Delivery Man” is a comical look at a man facing an unimaginable quandary. But it is really a humanistic portrait of a man learning to accept his flaws and focus on turning his life around.
Executive Producer Mark Sourian says, “The thing that’s so satisfying about the movie is we’ve found an extraordinary set of circumstances to put a character in the middle of. And yet those circumstances are very believable. There’s a craziness to those circumstances that is comedic. You can’t help but laugh.”
He concludes, “But there’s also a seriousness to it, and I think that blend creates a very unique tone for the movie that allows it to be funny but emotional and heartwarming.”
Opening soon across the Philippines, “Delivery Man” is a DreamWorks Picture distributed by Walt Disney Studios International.
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