Martha Marcy May Marlene director Sean Durkin to grapple with wrestling's Von Erich curse
Aux Features Film
Sean Durkin’s been working primarily as a producer since making a splash with Martha Marcy May Marlene, the affecting, cult-centric indie that helped launch the career of Elizabeth Olsen. That’s about to change, though, as the filmmaker will debut The Nest this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival and, as Deadline reports, is already at work on a follow-up about the wrestling world’s Von Erich family.
The Von Erich family—real name Adkisson—should be familiar to any longtime fan of pro wrestling, as the Texas clan’s World Class Championship Wrestling was wildly popular in the pre-WWE days, with Fritz Von Erich’s five children—Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris—serving as its shining, smiling stars. Kerry even found success in Vince McMahon’s WWE, winning the Intercontinental Championship in 1990 as the Texas Tornado.
Tragedy ran deep in the family, however, as their God-fearing personas masked a deep darkness. Fritz lived long enough to see five of his six sons die, three of them by suicide. Collectively, the tragedy of the family is referred to as the “Von Erich curse,” and it’s become a kind of shorthand for the mental, physical, and familial toll of sports entertainment, the exacting nature and unforgiving schedule of which has helped to claim no shortage of lives.
The Von Erich family’s story has been told numerous times—including in David Shoemaker’s excellent The Squared Circle and Viceland’s docuseries The Dark Side Of The Ring—but Durkin’s will be the first dramatization. “I’m very excited about this one,” Durkin told Deadline. “It’s another family portrait, about a wrestling family who revolutionized the sport and then suffered tragedy.”
Stay tuned for our Sundance dispatch on Durkin’s The Nest next week.
12 Comments
not for nothing, but this is gonna be excellent, i have a strong premonition.
The Von Erich story is genuinely tragic. I think the Dark Side of the Ring episode did a very good job of touching on the emotional strain that they underwent not only with being the first family of Texas wrestling, but also the loss of David. There’s so much there that I’m not sure a dramatized version will be able to do it all justice unless they go for a 2+ hour runtime.
Is the Dark Side of the Ring a podcast?
It’s a show on Vice. Your standard docu-series with its combination of interviews, archive footage, still photos, and the occasional audio recording weaved together to tell the story. This one happens to focus on wrestling. They also have another show called The Wrestlers that focuses on current wrestling cultures in different parts of the world.
The whole series of Dark Side of the Ring was great, but the Von Erich’s episode was definitely a standout. It really is a tragic story, and the surviving son who tells it is so clearly heartbroken by it all and I don’t blame him at all. Anyone would be hard pressed to be able to live each day after so much tragedy.
Its hard to imagine how difficult it would be to have someone close to you commit suicide, but THREE of your brothers? Holy shit.
What is neglect and shitty parenting being glossed over by romantic notion and nostalgia by wrestling fans and promoters Alex?
At least Kevin made it out alive.
Hilarious
If you read even a simple bullet point summary of the Von Erichs you will be weeping. My lord the bullshit this family went through was ridiculous.I look forward to this film.
I have been waiting for a live action movie telling of the Von Erich story since Micky Rourke’s The Wrestler.
The combination of drugs, sex, wrestling, 80s fashion in Texas… this has potential to be VERY GOOD.
Woah. This is unexpected and really exciting!