The recent announcement that the long awaited Rounders sequel could be coming to a theater near you in the not so distant future has led to quite a bit of hopeful anticipation in the poker community. Unfortunately I’m here to throw a huge bucket of cold water, actually five buckets of cold water, on all of your hopes and dreams –well, at least when it comes to Rounders 2.
The original was a flop in theatres
This seems to be an often overlooked fact by the poker community, but the original, despite its ensemble cast, was a borderline disaster at the box office. And this wasn’t a case where the cast was all up and coming actors and became famous later on. Matt Damon was coming off a decent little film called Good Will Hunting and a supporting role in another “ok” film, Saving Private Ryan. John Malkovich, John Turtorro, and Martin Landeau were all well known entities at the time as well.
As much as the poker community loves this film, and as well reviewed as the film was (good but not great), for most people it will still be a case of this being a poker movie, and for most people, any poker movie will still be a watch at home type of film. I mean, we’re not talking about Avengers 2 here, this is Rounders 2, I don’t think there will be a 3-D version of Rounders 2.
The genre was completely unknown at the time
When the original Rounders was released the theater-goers (who am I kidding nobody watched it in the theater) were as surprised at the level of intricacy involved in poker as Professor Petrovsky.
Rounders was a complete game-changer when it came to the public perception of poker and gamblers.
Everything about Rounders was new to 99% of the audience; even people who were causally familiar with poker watched Rounders and asked:
- There are underground cardrooms?
- You can make a living playing poker?
- Who is this Johnny Chan guy?
- What the hell is Texas Holdem?
- Two guys could cheat my home poker game that easily?
Basically, the entire poker subculture (which was tiny at the time) was exposed for the first time. People were suddenly hip to the idea that there is a lot less luck in poker than they originally thought.
Rounders wasn’t simply some dramatic Hollywood film; Rounders was also a documentary of sorts.
But this is no longer the case. The underside of poker has been so thoroughly exposed that most grandmothers could pick out Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey in a lineup, and would probably be able to describe how Chris Moneymaker bluffed Sammy Farha to win the 2003 WSOP.
Poker is no longer romantic… it’s geek-driven
What made Rounders so provocative and enthralling to non-poker players was the edginess to the characters. For all their virtues these were people that had been around the block once or twice and were far from choir boys –and nobody expected them to be.
The modern professional poker is more likely to know how to formulate Nash Equilibriums than to know how to spot a card cheat, and making edgy characters while still saying true to poker will be a difficult balancing act.
Koppelman and Levien haven’t been able to “hit” on a poker movie since Rounders
Rounders was great; it’s a movie that even non-poker players can enjoy. But the writing duo that brought us Rounders has missed the mark ever since. Koppelman and Levien have given us 9 episodes of Tilt and Runner Runner since Rounders, hardly a dossier that would make Rounders 2 a “can’t miss” movie.
I understand these were the first guys to “get it right” when it comes to poker, but it seems like Rounders was the outlier.
Oh, and the expectations are just too high for the film.
If Jimmy McMillan thinks the “Rent is too damn high,” than the poker communities expectations for Rounders 2 is even higher. I have a bad feeling that the poker community is going to hype this film up to the point where it can’t meet expectations, simply because of Koppelman and Levien. .
Rounders worked because it focused on a very narrow sliver of the poker world. Take away the short trip to Atlantic City, and the entire plot revolved around illegal card games in and around New York. With the modern poker world being so global I have a sneaky suspicion that the film will try to cover too much, be it online poker, the WSOP, or the already discussed trips to Europe.
It’s a sequel
Last but certainly not least, let’s not forget that this will be a sequel.
Sequel’s are the movie equivalent of drawing to a gutshot straight draw, and even if it’s good, it’s still nearly impossible to live up to the first movie. Remember how perfect a movie Major League was, and how bad Major League 2 was?
Perhaps the biggest problem the movie will have to overcome is the fact that successful poker players in 1998 earned $50k a year, but in today’s poker world a Mike McDermott or a Joey Knish would be laughed at as low limit grinders.
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