EXCLUSIVE: Alexa Swinton (Behemoth!), David Arquette (Scarpetta), Wyatt Oleff (It) and Sawyer Spielberg (Masters of the Air) are underway on the Minnesota shoot for Wreckless, an indie sports drama marking the directorial debut of Kayla Arend, who’s working from a script she wrote with Mickey Falcone.
Set within the male-dominated demolition derby community of rural Minnesota, Wreckless is a father/daughter story about addiction, grief, and recovery centered on Joni (Swinton), a reckless teenager who has learned to live with pain, and her father Larry (Arquette), a recovering addict who has spent years trying to outrun his own mistakes. When Joni enters the demolition derby, the father and daughter are forced to confront the past and rebuild their relationship in the most unlikely of arenas.
The film is shooting amidst the real demolition derby community of Rochester, Minnesota, with Oleff playing Atlas, Joni’s magnetic but troubled boyfriend, and Spielberg as Bo, Larry’s neighbor and sponsor. The cast also includes Rochester native Mohamed Khalid Mohamed as Ahmed, Joni’s best friend and co-worker, and other locals.
A graduate of NYU’s Graduate Film program whose thesis film, Leaving Yellowstone, was executive produced by Spike Lee, Arend said: “This story is important to me as the child of a man who battled addiction. The unwavering support that I received from this community is something I am eternally grateful for and will never take for granted. I cannot fathom making this film anywhere else. Wreckless is very much a modern portrait of the Midwest that I know and love.”
Cast by Barbara J. McCarthy (Sovereign, Sitting in Bars with Cake), Wreckless is exec produced by George Hubbard, Teresa Tsai, Timothy Carpenter, John Siff, Inna Swinton and Rolfe Swinton.
Clément Bauer (True Spirit, Sitting in Bars with Cake), who’s producing for Resonate Entertainment alongside Vic Brandt (She’s the He), told us: “Kayla and I both grew up in this pocket of Minnesota, and we knew it was the only place to tell this story, not just to reflect on where we come from, but to shine a light on a community that rarely gets represented on screen.”
Best known for roles on the shows And Just Like That… and Billions, Swinton’s film credits include M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and Jake Schreier’s Marvel entry Thunderbolts*. Upcoming, she’ll be seen in Tony Gilroy’s Searchlight drama Behemoth!, set in the world of classical music, which is out December 4. She is repped by Osbrink, Untitled Entertainment and Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.
Coming off an appearance in Scream 7, Arquette’s upcoming slate includes Scarpetta Season 2 for Prime Video, as well as such indies as Wildcard, The Night Driver, The Mess We Made and Killing Hitler. He is repped by Artium and Lighthouse Entertainment.
Most recently seen in Karate Kid: Legends and the Apple show City on Fire, Oleff’s also known for his work in the recent It films from New Line, the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, where he played a young version of Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill, and the Netflix series I Am Not Okay with This. He is repped by Gersh, Untitled Entertainment and Myman Greenspan.
Spielberg has appeared in the Apple series Masters of the Air, the Cannes-premiering Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, A24’s Materialists from Celine Song, and more. He is repped by Swiontek Entertainment and Gang, Tyre, Ramer.
