Sometime Sunday afternoon, a select group of UCLA students will gather at Mark 703 in Westwood for an advance screening of Balls Up, the new R-rated comedy from director Peter Farrelly, starring Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser, produced by Amazon MGM Studios and streaming exclusively on Prime Video starting April 15. The event is sponsored by Amazon Prime Video, and merch may also be on the table.
Balls Up, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the team behind the Deadpool franchise, follows two marketing executives named Brad and Elijah who stake their careers on a bold condom sponsorship deal tied to the World Cup. Their post-pitch celebration in Brazil spirals fast, setting off a chase across the country involving furious fans, criminals, and officials who would rather see them disappear. The supporting cast includes Sacha Baron Cohen, Eric Andre, Molly Shannon, and Benjamin Bratt. It runs 104 minutes and carries an R rating.
The Farrelly-Reese-Wernick combination is not subtle. This is a film built around a specific kind of escalating chaos, the type where each scene exists to make the previous one look restrained by comparison. Whether that lands depends on how much you trust the people making it, and all three have long track records with the genre. The early trailer suggests they are not pulling punches.
Invitations have already gone out to a limited number of people. If you have been contacted, you know the details. If you have not, the event is still happening and the window is closing.
Mark 703. Sunday afternoon.