Hooters Origins Movie In Works, Directed By Jon Rosenbaum
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Hooters: The Movie is being independently produced by the chain's original founding partners and is based on the real events behind Hooters' 1983 founding.
- Jon Rosenbaum, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose credits include Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp and Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls, is directing the film from a screenplay by Ed Droste, Phil Olson, and Chuck Melcher.
- The plot centers on Ted and Lenny, two lifelong Iowa friends who accidentally launch a national restaurant empire and later face threats from the federal government; Ted sets the story in motion by chasing Diane — a woman he spots in a spring break commercial — to Clearwater Beach, where she becomes the first Hooters Girl.
- Hooters co-founder Ed Droste, one of the screenwriters, is also serving as a producer and said the story shows "some guys who didn't know what we were doing, but had a great time doing it."
- Casting is underway, led by Lisa London and Catherine Stroud of London/Stroud Casting, with production eyed for November and filming planned primarily in the Tampa/Clearwater area, where the original Hooters restaurant opened in 1983.
- Rosenbaum, who called the origin story "the perfect combination of a hilarious buddy comedy and an inspiring biopic," is represented by Ross Fineman at Fineman Entertainment and Brent Jordan Sherman at the Characters Talent Agency.
Why it matters: Hooters is converting its 40-year brand mythology into film IP, handing creative control to its original founders rather than a major studio — a self-financed vanity project that doubles as a brand-extension play. The federal-government conflict baked into the plot hints that the filmmakers are dramatizing Hooters' real legal entanglements, potentially the franchise's long-running battles over its uniform policy.
Ask SkimNews
