Pickleball Has Officially Made It Now That Ben Stiller Is Producing A New Movie Called "The Dink"
20 years ago "Dodgeball" was released in theaters and the world of obscure sports has never been the same. The movie was so influential in the world of obscure sports that a professional dodgeball league was founded and games were televised for at least a few years. Even 20 years later, ESPN still dedicates an entire day in the middle of August to turn into ESPN8: The Ocho to air a bunch of weird sports like kabaddi, air hockey, and disc golf. 20 years later and you'll still catch people quoting the movie.
Now granted, 2004 was peak Stiller. It was peak Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor was an absolute rocket, and the world was a simpler place. But if Ben Stiller could make dodgeball so popular in 2004 that an entire professional league was formed, just imagine what he could do for pickleball in 2024.
Variety -- Former tennis champion Andy Roddick will star alongside Jake Johnson, Mary Steenburgen and Ed Harris in the upcoming pickleball comedy “The Dink.”
Johnson will play a washed-up tennis pro who is trying to save a club in crisis and win his father’s respect. But in the process, he’s forced to break a solemn vow and do the one thing he swore he’d never do: play pickleball. It’s unclear who anyone else is playing in “The Dink,” but Stiller will appear in a supporting role.
The 5 D's of pickelball. Dink, drop, drive, dodge, and dink.
Jake Johnson is delightful in everything he's in. The greatest part about Andy Roddick being involved here is that hopefully Brooklyn Decker makes an appearance as well. And then if Ben Stiller decides to pretty much bring back the White Goodman character, that's all you need. That's the cheat code to a perfect movie.
The only thing I'll say is that the plot here has one major hole. Jake Johnson is playing a washed-up tennis pro, and I'm going to assume that in the end of the movie he's going to win some big pickleball tournament to save the day. The only issue with that is that we've seen a bunch of guys coming over to pickleball from tennis over the last couple of years. Sam Querrey, Genie Bouchard, Donald Young, Jack Sock. I'd say Jack Sock is easily the best out of that group, but even he's not that great at pickleball yet. He was world number 8 in singles and world number 2 in doubles for tennis. I'd say he might sneak in the top 10 for singles in pickleball, but he's definitely not close to top 10 in doubles right now. Point I'm trying to make here is that the jump from tennis to pickleball isn't as easy as everything thinks it would be.
With that being said, I'd be more than happy to look past that plot hole if I can sneak my way into an extra role for the film. All I want in life right now is a credit as "Tournament Player #3" in this movie.