The movie “Bulls,” a comedy about darts, filmed in Michigan City, is now in some theaters and widely available on streaming platforms.
We spoke with the writer and director about the project years in the making.
Dan Meyer, who grew up in Michigan City, wrote the screenplay about 20 years ago.
“It was my first script that I ever wrote, so it was always sort of like my baby, I loved it,” he told us during an interview in Michigan City before a screening of the film.
He said there was interest in making the film at the time, with more famous actors, not Dan and his friends.
“All my friends that I wrote it for ended up being way more famous than the people that they wanted to do it originally,” he said with a laugh. “Originally it was me and Paul Rudd that were going to play the two leads, and then Michael Shannon, who is still in the movie.”
The lead actor, Meir Steinberg, had little experience.
“First time acting pretty much. He worked out at the steel mill. He came to an open audition we had at the high school and he was unbelievable.”
Meyer was back in town one day about three years ago.
“I was at McGuiness’s Pub here in Michigan City and I was talking to the owner, Kevin, and a couple of other friends, and they had a dart board in the place and somehow it just came up. I told them I wrote this movie about darts and I was telling them a little about the story and were all laughing about it and Kevin just casually pointed at the dart board and said, ‘why don’t you just shoot it here?’”
The film is about two brothers who own a struggling bar.
They play on a mediocre dart team and they get a chance to play in the world championship.
They see the opportunity as a way to get publicity for their bar.
There’s a patron whose father was a famous dart player and he becomes their coach.
We won’t spoil the ending.
Meyer said the location was perfect.
“It’s such an underdog story that it makes sense if they’re in a smaller town and not in a big city.”
The title of the film is short for bullseye and Meyer said it’s a metaphor for the main character, Hank, “finding his center.”