| Blades of Glory | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by |
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| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Stefan Czapsky |
| Edited by | Richard Pearson |
| Music by | Theodore Shapiro |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 93 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $61 million[1] |
| Box office | $145.7 million[1] |
Blades of Glory is a 2007 Americansports comedy film directed byWill Speck and Josh Gordon, written by Jeff Cox, Craig Cox,John Altschuler andDave Krinsky. It starsWill Ferrell andJon Heder as a mismatched pair of bannedfigure skaters who become teammates upon discovering a loophole that will allow them to compete in the sport again;Will Arnett,Amy Poehler,William Fichtner,Jenna Fischer, andCraig T. Nelson are featured in supporting roles. The idea for the film was conceived byBusy Philipps, who "fleshed out the screenplay";[2] however, co-writers Jeff and Craig Cox dropped her name from the script, with Philipps ultimately receiving just a story credit.[3]
The film was produced byDreamWorks Pictures,MTV Films,Red Hour Films and Smart Entertainment. Released on March 30, 2007, byParamount Pictures, it received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $145.7 million worldwide against a $61 million budget.
At the 2002 World Winter Sport Games, raunchysex addict Chazz Michael Michaels and sheltered,effeminate Jimmy MacElroy tie for the men'ssingle skating gold. Standing together on the podium, the two argue and begin fighting. They are stripped of their medals and banned from competitive skating for life.
Three and a half years later, both are working in demoralizing jobs. Chazz performs in costume in a children's ice show, while Jimmy works at a sporting goods store. Jimmy's obsessed fan, Hector, reveals a loophole in the skating rules: Jimmy is banned from men's singles skating, but not frompairs skating.
Jimmy contacts his former coach, Goddard, hoping to compete in the upcoming 2006 World Winter Sport Games. Seeking a pairs partner at the same children's ice show, he runs into Chazz, who was just fired for drunkenness. They fight again and are arrested. Watching news video of their unintentionally balletic brawl, Coach Goddard gets an idea and convinces them to skate as the first-ever male-male pairs team.
Goddard arranges a secret practice rink, hires a choreographer, and puts them up in his cabin, stipulating that they learn to get along. Jimmy and Chazz start to bond and perform well at the Winter Sports Games qualifiers, alarming brother and sister competitors Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg. Stranz and Fairchild guilt their younger sister Katie into secretly filming Jimmy and Chazz practicing. Jimmy and Katie are mutually attracted, and Chazz coaches Jimmy on courting her. After Jimmy and Katie go on a date, her siblings threaten to harm Jimmy unless she seduces Chazz to create a rift between the men.
To impress the judges, Coach Goddard wants Jimmy and Chazz to perform the complicated and perilous "Iron Lotus" maneuver. In the only prior attempt, the man decapitated the woman with his skates; Goddard believes it failed because it required two men to execute.
Katie pretends to be a member of Chazz's sex addicts meeting, then invites Chazz to her room and tries to seduce him. To her relief, Chazz refuses out of respect for Jimmy, but can't resist grabbing her breasts just as Jimmy arrives. Outraged, Jimmy flees.
Stranz and Fairchild kidnap Chazz and Jimmy to sabotage their performance. Chazz escapes and skates his way to the arena with Stranz in hot pursuit. Fairchild reveals to Jimmy that they forced Katie have sex with Chazz to make Jimmy jealous, but Chazz wouldn't go through with it. Jimmy, overjoyed, also escapes.
Chazz and Jimmy arrive at the ice rink just in time to compete. Fairchild deliberately breaks her necklace to spill pearls onto the ice. Chazz skates over one and breaks his ankle, rendering him unable to perform his role in the Iron Lotus. Although they have never practiced each other's parts, Jimmy and Chazz switch places and perform perfectly to win the competition.
Jimmy reconciles with Katie, and Stranz and Fairchild are arrested. Jimmy and Chazz are awarded the gold medal and fly off into the sky via rockets on their skates.
The film was based on Busy Philipps' idea and she worked on the screenplay. However, in an oral history about the movie forNerdist, Craig Cox fully attributed the idea ofBlades of Glory to his brother, Jeff Cox. The oral history has since been updated with information about Philipps' contributions.[2] Phillips discussed the incident in her memoir,This Will Only Hurt A Little, stating that she should be credited as a co-writer in the credits and that she had registered the idea with theWriters Guild of America West at its inception, having come up with the concept – even suggesting Will Ferrell as one of the two co-leads (alongsideBen Stiller) – while she and then-boyfriend Craig were watching television together when he visited her inVancouver, during production ofWhite Chicks.[4]Seth Rogen has also said that he and his writing partnerEvan Goldberg wrote a draft of the screenplay that included some of the "biggest jokes" featured in the finished film, but they were ultimately fired and did not receive any credit.[5]
All of the scenes at the National Figure Skating Championships and World Wintersport Games were shot at theLos Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The stadium used for the outside shoots is theMontreal Olympic Stadium, built for the1976 Olympics. The outdoor chase scenes were also shot on-location inMontreal. The building used for athlete housing in Montreal was the uniqueHabitat 67, built forExpo 67. The film was delayed for a small undetermined period of time when Jon Heder broke his ankle while doing a skating program for the film.[6]
Blades of Glory grossed $118.2 million in the U.S. and Canada and $26.3 million in other territories, for a total of $145.7 million.[7]
The film grossed $33 million in its opening weekend from 3,372 theaters, averaging $9,790 per screen, topping fellow new releaseMeet the Robinsons to finish in first.[8] It made $22.5 million in its second weekend, dropping just 32.1% and remaining in first. It then made $13.8 million in its third weekend and $7.7 million in its fourth, finishing in second and third place, respectively.[9]
Review aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 70% based on 188 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Thanks to the spirited performances of a talented cast – particularly Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as rivals-turned-teammates –Blades of Glory successfully spoofs inspirational sports dramas with inspired abandon."[10] OnMetacritic the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[11] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[12]
The Monthly criticLuke Davies accepted the film as a fun romp, comparing it to Will Ferrell's previous moviesAnchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy andTalladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and wrote positively of Ferrell's performance, describing that "there is a parodic exhilaration to everything Ferrell does; there's always the sense that any scene is precariously close to being a blooper reel." However, Davies conceded that, like the other two films, the plot was "formulaic ... [with] an obviousness to the set-ups, a no-nonsense compression, a sometimes clunky transition from one sequence to the next" but that it was the film's ability to "venture to fantastically absurd places – to set aside the rapid and hokey forward movement – and there to idle in neutral, in zones of pure comic exploration" and offer "moments of expansive hilarity ... that made the films worthwhile."[13]
The film was released onDVD andHD DVD on August 28, 2007,[14] and released onBlu-ray Disc on May 20, 2008.[15]
