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Draft Day

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Draft Day
Theatrical release poster
Directed byIvan Reitman
Written by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyEric Steelberg
Edited by
Music byJohn Debney
Production
companies
Distributed byLionsgate
Release dates
  • April 7, 2014 (2014-04-07) (Los Angeles)
  • April 11, 2014 (2014-04-11) (United States)
Running time
110 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million
Box office$29.8 million

Draft Day is a 2014 American sports drama film directed by Ivan Reitman and starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner. The premise revolves around the fictional general manager of the Cleveland Browns (Costner) deciding what to do after his team acquires the number one draft pick in the upcoming National Football League Draft.

The film premiered in Los Angeles on April 7, 2014[2] and was released in the United States on April 11, 2014. It received mixed reviews from critics and was a box office failure grossing only $29 million against its $25 million budget. The film was Reitman's final directorial effort and Jim Brown's final acting role before their deaths in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Plot

The movie opens in New York City, where it is almost 13 hours until the NFL Draft officially begins. ESPN sports announcers discuss the future of potential NFL picks whose lives will be forever changed. In Seattle, the Seattle Seahawks owner discusses the top draft pick with general manager Tom Michaels. In Cleveland, the general manager of the Cleveland Browns watches as a news report discusses Sonny's top picks for the draft. Sonny and Ali have a tense discussion about Ali's pregnancy. While watching ESPN reports on top prospects he writes down something on a note and puts it in his pocket. Sonny talks to Tom about the possibility of trading draft picks. Tom offers to trade the Seahawks number one draft pick for Sonny's top picks for the next two years as well as his third pick for the third year, Sonny turns down the offer. Sonny talks to potential draft pick Vontae Mack about the draft and pay rates. Vontae mentions that he will not attend the draft in New York and is currently driving to Virginia. Sonny also talks to Earl Jennings, about his son Ray Jennings potentially being drafted by the Browns. Sonny and Browns owner Anthony discuss how to increase ticket sales. Anthony threatens to fire Sonny and the head coach if they do not improve the Browns performance. Tom talks to Sonny about the previous deal but changes the last third pick to the first pick, Sonny, now in a dilemma, decides to go with the deal. At the Browns training facility, the scouts discuss Jennings. Sonny breaks the news about the deal he made. While they are all ecstatic at the news they are soon dismayed when they learn of the deal Sonny made with the Seahawks. Anthony calls Sonny to congratulate him about the trade heads to the draft to personally hand presumed number one draft pick, Bo Callahan, a personalized Browns jersey.

9 hours until the draft Sonny speaks with Bo's agent, Cris Crawford about Bo. Cris hands Bo the phone and Sonny asks him how he feels about winning, to which Sonny is not impressed with his answer. Sonny and Coach Penn get in an argument about his past coaching the Dallas Cowboys and Sonny's father which hits a nerve. Sonny later talks with Vontae about his tweet about Bo that might indicate that Bo is soft. Vontae states that he sacked Callahan four times and after each sack Bo folded. Sonny and the training coach talk about the progress his injury prone quarterback, Brian Drew has made in the off-season. Sonny's tries to find flaws in Callahan as he describes other players that seemed weaker than they really were. Sonny and Tom talk again about their deal while some protesters are seen gathering outside Seahawks headquarters. Sonny vents to Ali about his faults as he wants their relationship to work but is worried about being a parent. Ali confesses her flaws and fears when it comes to parenting. Their conversation is interrupted when they are informed that Brian has trashed Sonny's office. Brian demands that Sonny trade him as Bo plays the same position as him. In Kansas City, home of the Kansas City Chiefs, general manager Pete Begler shows interest in taking Brian Drew for the Chiefs quarterback position. Ali and Coach Penn talk about attempting to get the previous picks back since Penn believes Ali can sway Sonny's decision. Ali angrily refuses. Sonny talks to Ralph, the Browns background checker about Callahan, that at Callahan's twenty first birthday party none of his teammates showed up. Sonny talks to Bo's college coach, Coach Moore about the party and subsequent robbery incident, to which Coach Moore angrily rebuffs Sonny's inference that Bo was disliked by his teammates. Buffalo Bills general manager Max Stone calls Sonny about trading Callahan for the Bills first two year picks and running back. Sonny argues with Coach Penn about Penn going behind his back to talk to the Bills coach about a potential trade.

3 hours till the draft. Sonny and Ali talk about the Bills trade deal and the fact that he only gets back draft picks, and cannot make a pick for the next year. They reminisce about the 1989 Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals and the play 49ers made that caused to win the Super Bowl. They agree on the importance of how the great ones ‘find a way to slow down’. Sonny and the Browns staff watch footage between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Wisconsin and see how Bo reacted to being sacked by Vontae. Ali and Sonny discuss their affair and Ali decides she doesn’t want it to be a secret. Sonny and Ralph talk about Washington's playbook, where a $100 bill is taped at the end to see if players read it. Ralph informs Sonny that Bo never read the whole playbook and lied twice about it when confronted. Houston Texans general manager Bill Zoti calls Sonny to ask him about Vontae as they are interested in drafting him. Sonny's mother Barb talks about his father's wish to have his ashes spread on the 50 yard line. Sonny and Ali talk about Sonny firing his father, where Sonny confesses that it was really his mother's idea to have his father fired as his doctors warned that coaching would be detrimental to his health.

An hour until the draft and Bo Callahan arrives in New York for the draft as well Ray Jennings. Backstage Sonny talks to Bo on the phone about whether or not Bo’s teammates came to his party, Bo responds with the fact that he doesn’t remember anything from that night, to which Sonny replies “to be honest, I don’t remember mine either”. Ali and Sonny talk about what feels right for the pick, bringing up that Tom Brady wasn’t on anyone's radar.

Finally the 2014 Draft officially kicks off as everyone is watching, putting the Browns on a 10 minute timer. Sonny decides to send the pick alone, without anyone's opinion or intervention. The commissioner then reads out Vontae Mack as the pick, to everyone's shock. Sonny throws the Post-It note he previously had stating, “Vontae Mack no matter what”. Because the Browns didn't pick him Callahan begins to fall in the draft. Sonny calls Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Jeff Carson before Arizona's pick, Sonny states that he believes Callahan is a bust and has false character. Sonny offers to trade his 2nd pick for the next three years for Jeff's 6th pick, Jeff takes the offer. Sonny talks to Tom and makes an offer where he wants his number ones back, also brings up the fact that Seahawk fans were upset over Tom's decision. He also bargains for David Puttney, punt returner, the deal being set. Sonny uses the pick to draft Ray Jennings. All the Browns celebrate the result from the draft. Sonny and his mother reunite as well as break the news that Sonny and Ali are going to become parents. The film ends with the Browns season kickoff.

Cast

As well, a number of NFL players, executives and sportscasters had cameo appearances as themselves, including: Chris Berman, Russ Brandon, Jim Brown, Rich Eisen, Roger Goodell, Jon Gruden, Bernie Kosar, Ray Lewis and Alex Marvez.

Production

Draft Day writers, Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman, met while attending graduate school at New York University. They bonded over their love of both writing and football and joked around about the idea of creating something together. It wasn’t until years later, a mutual friend of theirs mentioned that despite not being a fan of football, she found watching the NFL Draft enjoyable. This led Joseph and Scott to get into contact with the then general manager of the New York Jets, Mike Tannenbaum. They had a call with him and asked him many questions about what the environment of Draft Day was like for the managers. They quickly realized that despite their love of football, they had no idea the way that the Draft played out. They continued to think about a possible story they could tell and what characters or plots they could bring to a football movie. The two writers eventually wrote a very rushed first screenplay of Draft Day to submit to the Sundance Institute for a Screenwriter’s Lab in September of 2011. They were not accepted into the program, but were able to spend more time revising the script. [3]

After some revising, the writer duo were able to meet with a producer in LA and were told that the script was not good and would never be made. However, things began looking up for Draft Day when director Ivan Reitman contacted the writers and told them he wanted to make their movie. Paramount Pictures was originally set to produce the film, but dropped out, leaving the team at a loss of what to do. Reitman was convinced the movie could be a major production, and eventually got Oddlot Entertainment and Summit Entertainment on board.[3]

When the idea was first made public, the film was to be centered on the Buffalo Bills, but the studio subsequently changed it to the Cleveland Browns because of cheaper production costs in Ohio.[4]

Typically, screenwriters are not needed after the movie goes into production, however Joseph and Scott were called to set nearly daily to meet with star Kevin Costner to go over the script and make any needed adjustments. Because of this, the script was often changed on the fly during the shooting days.[3]

The first day of filming took place during the day of the actual 2013 NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall. Actual SportCenter casters Chris Berman and Mel Kiper, as well as the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell read lines for the movie right before the actual draft started.[3] Crowd reactions of fans at the actual 2013 NFL Draft, as well as Cleveland Browns fans at local bars, were filmed. Cameos with real-life NFL figures such as league commissioner Roger Goodell and ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman were filmed before and after the draft took place. The rest of the film began filming on May 8, 2013.

2014 NFL Draft

As in the film, the Cleveland Browns made splashes at the draft, trading up to select quarterback Johnny Manziel with the 22nd pick. The team also made several deals, trading away their fourth pick to the Buffalo Bills for their ninth pick, as well as their 2015 first round pick. They later traded up to the eighth pick to draft Justin Gilbert. Finally, after watching Manziel drop farther than projected, they again traded up for the 22nd pick. Chris Berman, who played himself in the fictionalized draft, commented at the 2014 NFL Draft that the events surrounding the Cleveland Browns were more exciting than the film. Unlike the film, the Browns selected the much-hyped Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, as opposed to passing on Bo Callahan, the fictionalized first pick favorite.

Marketing

The first poster and trailer for the film were released on December 23, 2013.[5]

Reception

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 60% of 163 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "It's perfectly pleasant for sports buffs and Costner fans, but overall, Draft Day lives down to its title by relying too heavily on the sort of by-the-numbers storytelling that only a statistician could love."[6] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 54 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[7]

Chicago Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper gave the film a "B", stating the film is "a sentimental, predictable, sometimes implausible but thoroughly entertaining, old-fashioned piece."

Ian Rapoport, an NFL Network Insider who held multiple brief cameos throughout the film, admitted that there are “plenty of things that aren’t exactly the way it goes” within the actual drafting process. And then goes on to praise the film on how NFL general managers “do talk about trades as they did during the movie,” and the honest discussions real people may have.[8]

On the contrary, Jack Hamilton of Slate was harshly critical. "The 'filmmaking' here consists of making sure the camera is pointed at people who are explaining the film's plot to one another, preferably while they are wearing logos and standing in front of more logos," he wrote. He suggested the NFL's involvement had made the film too upbeat. "[It] isn't so much a movie as a movielike infomercial for the kinder, gentler NFL ... In the wake of labor strife, off-field scandals, and the ongoing CTE concussions crisis, the NFL is doubling down on its fantasy of paternalism, and Draft Day is that fantasy's porn film."[9]

Former Green Bay Packers vice president Andrew Brandt criticized Draft Day as "lacking any true depiction of how an NFL team operates leading up to and during the draft", and less realistic about the business of sports than Jerry Maguire and Moneyball.[10] Riley McAtee, writing for The Ringer, noted that the Browns burdened themselves with an additional $7 million in annual salary (as stated by a Seahawks executive in the film) to the fictional Mack – a player who would have been lucky to be drafted 15th overall, compounded by the fact that the Browns have also deprived the fictional Callahan of $7 million in annual salary that he, not Mack, should be making: McAtee also notes the complete ineptness of the fictional executives of the Seahawks and Jaguars, making bad deal after bad deal, calling the latter the equivalent of "a kid who just wet his pants".[11]

The screenplay was the number one script on the 2012 Black List survey of unproduced screenplays. Writing for WhatCulture, David Hynes listed it as the 10th best script of the 2010s, arguing that it "follows one of the central tenets of screenwriting which is, 'thou shalt make things as hard as possible for your protagonist'". However, he was felt that the film's execution failed to deliver on a script that was "as good as it gets."[12]

Release

Domestic Box Office

$28.8 million was grossed domestically (United States and Canada) over 37 weeks. Draft Day grossed around $9.8 million during the film’s opening weekend, representing 34% of the $29.8 million worldwide total,[13] against a budget of $25 million.[14] It spent its first two weeks in the Top 10 at the domestic box office, before quickly dropping to the Top 58th nearing the end of its theatrical release cycle.[15]

Domestic Video Sales

Based on total market estimates collected by The Numbers, a film industry statistic site that utilizes data to provide real analytics, Draft Day is estimated to have earned $12.1 million in Domestic Video Sales.[13]

International Box Office

Close to $1 million was earned in international box offices, as Mexico and Venezuela are responsible for over half of these earnings. Even though American football is predominantly popular within the U.S., Vietnam released the movie on June 27, 2014, with just a few ticket sales amassing $878.[13]

Digital Release

Prime Video, Apple TV+,[16] and HBO Max are all streaming platforms for the film, as well as free-with-ads on any Roku streaming service.[17]

Analysis

Regarding sports in the United States, the NFL draft is one of the most celebrated and anticipated cultural phenomena. Steve Persall from the Tampa Bay Times, remains very opinionated about the shortcomings of the film, claiming that “[t]his movie doesn’t even trust the viewers to know where teams play” as each city is introduced with their relative mascot.[18] Other critics dissected and compared the less-than-realistic happenings within the film to their NFL Draft counterparts. For example, most of the info-gathering occurs on the final day of the draft when real NFL Draft decisions take months of research and planning. These details are simple to overlook during the production of a multi-million-dollar movie, as Ian Rapoport is recorded sharing his awareness of the film's inaccuracies stating that "Hollywood does its thing".[8] With the inclusion of an underdeveloped love story amid heavy sports talk, the film strays from capitalizing on die-hard NFL fans before the film is even released.

The film itself is also treated similarly to the NFL Draft, many scenes play like advertisements, with logo after logo being shoved in the viewer’s face, along with loud visuals that “give the viewer the impression they’re watching something truly important.”[19] The NFL Draft provides tens of millions of dollars to first picks,[20] but these large-scale stakes are difficult to convey in a two-hour film.

See also

References

  1. ^ "DRAFT DAY (15)". Lions Gate Entertainment. British Board of Film Classification. August 7, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  2. ^ Burton, Danielle (April 8, 2014). "'Draft Day' Premiere: Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner Cheered as Stars Take the Field-Like Carpet". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d Joseph, Rajiv; Rothman, Scott (April 10, 2021). "» On the Clock: The Writing and Making of 'Draft Day'". Retrieved March 19, 2024.
  4. ^ "NFL Draft movie starring Kevin Costner moves from Bills to Browns". sbnation.com. March 6, 2013. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  5. ^ "Check Out the Trailer and Poster for Draft Day, Starring Kevin Costner". comingsoon.net. December 23, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2014.
  6. ^ "Draft Day". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved January 4, 2024. Edit this at Wikidata
  7. ^ "Draft Day". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Korpan, Andrew (August 29, 2023). "EXCL: NFL insider Ian Rapoport is a fan of Draft Day". ClutchPoints | Entertainment News. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  9. ^ Hamilton, Jack (April 10, 2014). "Draft Day movie: Kevin Costner and Roger Goodell star in the NFL's version of Moneyball". Slate. Archived from the original on May 6, 2023. Retrieved April 11, 2014.
  10. ^ Brandt, Andrew (April 16, 2014). "'Draft Day' Reality Checks". Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on April 7, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  11. ^ McAtee, Riley (July 20, 2016). "Even in Fiction, the Browns Can't Get It Right". The Ringer. Archived from the original on February 7, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  12. ^ Hynes, David (February 2, 2017). "10 Best Movie Screenplays Since 2010". WhatCulture. Archived from the original on April 11, 2023. Retrieved February 4, 2021.
  13. ^ a b c "Draft Day (2014) - Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved March 16, 2024.
  14. ^ McClintock, Pamela (April 13, 2014). "Box Office: 'Captain America: Winter Soldier' Trumps 'Rio 2' With $41.4 Million". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on April 29, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  15. ^ "Draft Day | Domestic Weekly". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  16. ^ "Draft Day | Rotten Tomatoes". www.rottentomatoes.com. April 11, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2024.
  17. ^ Williams, Cody (April 26, 2023). "Is Draft Day streaming on Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max or anywhere?". FanSided. Retrieved March 16, 2024.
  18. ^ Persall, Steve. "Review: 'Draft Day' fumbles but recovers". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  19. ^ Tallerico, Brian. "Draft Day movie review & film summary (2014) | Roger Ebert". Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  20. ^ Cohen, Andrew (April 26, 2023). "What NFL First-Round Picks Can Expect to Make in 2023". Front Office Sports. Retrieved March 16, 2024.
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