“Mark Wahlberg” goes to town on an American tragedy in this script for The Bowling Green Massacre

By William Hughes  |  February 4, 2017 | 10:06pm
Aux Features Film

The Bowling Green Massacre—a.k.a., the dumb Kellyanne Conway gaffe that caught the hearts and minds of a nation—has inspired plenty of jokes, and even a semi-fake charitable movement, already. But no American tragedy can be truly real until Mark Wahlberg (or at least “Mark Wahlberg”) has made a Patriots Day-style movie about it. Enter comedy writer Jordan VanDina, a.k.a. Weekend Scripts, who spent a recent weekend penning a freedom-loving thriller in which a heroic Wahlberg is prepared to die for America’s right to bowl.

VanDina—who’s the author of similarly speedily written fare like 21 Trump Street, and one about Bill Murray stealing that Wu-Tang Clan record back from Martin Shkreli—transfers the Massacre from the place it hypothetically could have, but definitely did not, happen, Bowling Green, Kentucky, to Wahlberg’s native Boston. (The better to have the actor frequently tour its landmarks and reminisce about the “over the jean handjobs” he got in various spots.) Clocking in at 31 pages long, and written in Wahlberg’s own voice, it’s a brisk read, full of powerful dialogue and action scenes like these:

There’s also a requisite plug for Wahlburgers.

VanDina’s script was passed around on Instagram by his colleague Paul Scheer, who recently appeared—alongside Jason Mantzoukas, June Diane Raphael, Lance Reddick, Ron Funches, Mary Holland, Nick Kroll and Randall Park—in a live-read of VanDina’s recent Hitler-drifting opus, Fast Nein: The Fast And The Fuhrer.

 
Join the discussion...