2010: Matula Tickled by His Success

Director turns his attention to creating comedy

By Dan Koller | Staff Writer

Let’s be honest: As many readers have guessed, our “30 Years, 30 Stories” series was inspired by ESPN’s “30 for 30,” a batch of documentaries that marked the network’s three decades as “the worldwide leader in sports.”

The final entry in ESPN’s series was Pony Exce$$, a movie about the glory days of SMU’s football program. So it’s fitting that our series finale focuses on that film’s director, Thaddeus Matula, whom we profiled on Dec. 24, 2010.

Because it debuted after the presentation of the Heisman Trophy, Pony Exce$$ was the highest-rated film in the “30 for 30” series. It was also critically acclaimed in an ESPN.com fan poll, consistently finishing No. 2 behind The U, a similarly themed picture about the University of Miami football program.

So with all that success, you would think Matula’s next project would be another documentary. If so, you’d be wrong. Matula is developing a comedy, a feature-length version of a short film he made 10 years ago.

“It’s about two guys who really want to be cops, but they’re not, and they go out and try to be cops anyway,” he said. “I call it a cop-buddy pic without the cops.”

Matula said he is putting the finishing touches on the script while meeting with producers and actors in Los Angeles.

“We want to get some A-listers to throw in there for stunt casting, you know, so the answer to ‘who’s in it?’ is not ‘no one,’ ” he said with a laugh.

Moving from a documentary to a comedy doesn’t sound so odd once you hear about the origins of Pony Exce$$.

“I’d always wanted to tell the story of the SMU death penalty, but I’d always intended to tell it as a narrative, as a scripted film with actors,” Matula said. “But the idea of doing that had always been on the backburner, because that’s a project that’s, you know, at least $50 million, because you’re recreating an era, you have giant crowd scenes, you’ve got hundreds of locations …”

It was a casual conversation with a friend in Austin — a friend who coincidentally had produced a couple of sports documentaries — that convinced Matula to change his format.

“Things just fell into place,” he said. “I mean, good luck, being in the right place at the right time, happy chances, the team finally turning it around and going to a bowl game and winning it — every step of the way, it was like, ‘Yes, I’m doing the right thing.’ ”

Email dan.koller@peoplenewspapers.com

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