Raise your paper crown. On October 8, Deadline reported that Paramount Pictures is in early development on a live-action, four-quadrant family comedy based on Medieval Times. Yes, the dinner theater. The director of the Weird Al Yankovic biopic is making a movie about eating turkey legs with your hands while knights joust. And honestly? This sounds fantastic.
The logline that sells itself
Here is the official logline: “When a struggling employee at the Orlando Medieval Times accidentally unleashes a real 9th-century knight, along with an ancient evil necromancer, he has to team up with the feral warrior to save the castle, then the world, and finally win the respect he’s always craved.”
A real knight. An evil necromancer. An Orlando dinner theater employee who has to save the world to earn his coworkers’ respect. That is not a pitch; it is a promise. The genius is in the structure: keep the thing everyone knows, the jousting, the horses, the eating with your hands, and bolt a fantasy adventure onto it. It is Night at the Museum energy with lances.
The right people for the job
Directing is Eric Appel, who made Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a film that took the most ridiculous premise imaginable and turned it into one of the funniest movies of its year. Appel’s gift is playing absurdity completely straight, which is exactly what this project needs. A Medieval Times movie only works if everyone involved commits like it is Shakespeare.
Writing is Blaise Hemingway, who co-wrote Weird with Appel and also penned 2021’s Clifford the Big Red Dog. That combination, a comedian’s instincts plus a proven family-film track record, is the ideal recipe for a “four-quadrant family comedy,” studio-speak for a movie grandparents and grandkids enjoy together. The director and writer share a comic sensibility, which suggests this came together as a genuine package, not a committee assignment.
A brand 40 years in the making
For the uninitiated: Medieval Times opened its first North American location in Florida in 1983, and there are now ten venues across the United States and Canada. You sit in a stadium, you eat rustic food with no silverware, and you cheer for color-coded knights on real horses jousting for your honor. If you grew up in America, you have seen the commercials roughly six thousand times.
The idea of a full movie is not new. The rights were actually sold back in 2013, and that version never materialized. Sometimes the best ideas need a decade to find their people. And the people are there: family spectacle is having a real moment, from Cirque du Soleil’s teased 2027 Big Top show to the holiday season’s big-ticket productions.
Why this will work
The last few years taught Hollywood that the weirder the IP, the better, as long as the filmmakers love it. Barbie was a toy commercial directed by Greta Gerwig. The Lego Movie was a toy commercial directed by geniuses. A Medieval Times movie works on the same principle: the brand is a Trojan horse for whatever the filmmakers actually want to make, which here appears to be a fish-out-of-water fantasy comedy with real heart.
The Orlando setting is a lovely touch. Not a generic castle. The actual Orlando flagship, where tourists in fanny packs can become heroes. There is something deeply American about the whole thing: the most European fantasy imaginable, filtered through a Florida parking lot. Appel will know exactly what to do with that.
Early development means no cast, no production date, no release window. The milestones to watch: casting, since the knight and the employee are star-making roles, and whether Paramount fast-tracks this for a holiday or summer slot. If you are near one of the ten castles, consider this your sign to go. In a few years you will want to say you were there before the movie. Huzzah.
Be First to Comment