The two-time Academy Award-winning director of Dumb and Dumber sounds very strange when you hear it, but that’s exactly what happened to Peter Farrelly when he scooped two Oscars for producing and writing awards season favorite Green Book, entirely justifying his decision to pivot away from comedy and into prestige drama.
However, he’s back on familiar turf with his next effort, and he’s got a pair of big stars headlining the cast. As per Variety, Zac Efron and Russell Crowe have arrived in Thailand for the start of production on The Greatest Beer Run Ever, which as you may have guessed from the title will be more in line with Farrelly’s earlier work, even though the story behind it is as incredible as it is true.
Based on the book of the same name by Joanna Molloy and John ‘Chickie’ Donohue, the story unfolds in 1967 at the height of the Vietnam war. Efron will play Donohue , who was a Marine Corps veteran working as a merchant seaman at the time. He was effectively dared to sneak into Vietnam, track down the friends of his drinking buddies and bring them both messages of support and beer; which he did.
AppleTV+ scooped up the rights to The Greatest Beer Run Ever in March of this year, with cameras now rolling ahead of an expected late 2022 release date, where it’s sure to drum up plenty of interest based on the bonkers true-life tale of a man who infiltrated a war zone in the name of a challenge and some beers.