Zac Efron grapples with the curse of the Von Erichs in The Iron Claw trailer
Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Maura Tierney, and Holt McCallany bring wrestling back to the territories in the first trailer for Iron Claw
Film News The Iron Claw
The curse of the Von Erichs looms large over the world of professional wrestling. A wrestling dynasty that never was, the Von Erichs were among the most promising wrestling families of the sport’s first golden age. Then tragedy struck, and then it struck again. And again. And again.
Setting us up for an emotional slobber knocker, A24 released the first trailer for The Iron Claw, Sean Durkin’s wrestling biopic about the Von Erichs. The film stars Zac Efron as Kevin Von Erich, the eldest surviving son of Frtiz Von Erich (played by Holt McCallany), a top star in the ‘60s and the owner and promoter of World Class Championship Wrestling. Fritz made Kevin a star and champion in WCCW and elevated his brothers Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson), and Mike (Stanley Simons) to the promotion’s biggest attractions. By 1993, Kevin would be his generation’s only surviving Von Erich.
Directed by Sean Durkin, The Iron Claw digs into the legend, promise, and tragedy of the family. With an eye for authenticity, Durkin’s ring awareness is all over the trailer’s flashback to the Texas territories of the ‘70s and ’80s. It was a time just before Vince McMahon’s WWE (née WWF) took monopolistic control of the pro-wrestling landscape, when the most popular grapplers in the country all shared a last name.
But like all wrestling movies, Iron Claw doesn’t appear to shy away from the physical and mental toll holding fixed matches takes on the performers. Fritz Von Erich trained his boys with an iron, um, fist, forcing them to compete with each other to put butts in seats. By the end of the 80s, the promise of the family was all but broken.
Iron Claw dropkicks into theaters on December 22, 2023.
48 Comments
Spoiler: it wasn’t actually a curse it was just that their dad was an asshole.
Beat me to it. Although “asshole” is awfully kind.
Yeah, I think he was kind of a monster
There was an old rasslin’ rumor going around that Fritz was cursed by a Jewish wrestling fan at a bar after a show because his character was an evil Nazi wrestler. People who think that things were somehow classier in the pre-Vince McMahon era are kidding themselves.
I have been listening to the episodes of the Behind the Bastards podcast about Vince. And in the first episode host Robert Evans spends a bunch of time talking about Fritz von Erich and his sons just to demonstrate how there were a lot of terrible people in the industry pre-Vince.
Works for the Kennedys as well.
The film stars Zac Efron as Kevin Von Erich (played by Holt McCallany)This Inception sequel sounds wild!
Yeah, what?
So glad I wasn’t the only one confused by this…
I don’t need editors. Just proofread your own shit, AVC writers, once before publishing. Anyway, McCallany is the dad.
The use of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” isn’t just because its a great song. One of Kerry’s monikers was “The Modern Day Warrior” because he used the song as entrance music.
I’m assuming this means “La Grange” is also in the movie. (Can’t watch the trailer now; at work and Youtube lags badly here.)
I’m kind of surprised Rush hasn’t turned in up in more films and shows. They always have done atmospherics well.
This trailer confirms that Jeremy Allen White needs to play Wolverine.
first time i’ve heard that one. i’d take it over radcliffe, i guess, but i wish we could get someone with a deep voice. i don’t care about he height stuff i always thought really short wolverine looked stupid.
So apparently you do care about the height stuff.
Masterful cross-examination!
got my ass.
I dunno if this fan-casting has been a thing for a while, but I instantly thought “That guys could make a good Wolverine” when watching the trailer.
The “curse of the Von Erichs” was that their dad was a grade A shithead who used them and pushed them until they were broken
This family is pretty much a “how not to” example for parenting, isn’t it?
A less funny Royal Tenenbaums, for sure.
Are we sure the Von Erichs didn’t just take a wrong turn down Badstreet USA?
Jeremy Allen White doesn’t nail Kerry’s massive frame or good looks but he looks like he gives a great performance. Zac is dead on as Kevin.I got into wrestling too late to watch World Class but I loved Kerry as the Texas Tornado in the WWF. He killed himself when I was 11, I was heartbroken. At the time I didn’t even know he was like the 4th one to die, until I read it in the wrestling magazines later. I absolutely couldn’t believe it when I found out he wrestled his entire WWF run with one fucking foot. That’s still one of the most unbelievable showings of athleticism I’ve ever seen.Even when he killed himself he didn’t take the quick way out. He shot himself in the heart. How much sadness and pain do you have to be feeling to shoot yourself in the heart?
Kerry’s method of death was more a testament to his astonishing stupidity than his torment. Pretty much everyone who encountered him has a story about how brainless he was.
Nobody is stupid enough to shoot themselves in the heart. He was literally heartbroken by the destruction of his entire world.
This one is gonna hit a bunch of us olds right in the feels, especially if you grew up in the South as a kid in the 70-80’s. I was from around the area that the Von Erichs were kings of the ring and every kid worth his toughskins worshipped those boys like superheros. Every Sunday we tuned in to watch them battle the Freebirds. Hell, I remember going to see them as a 7 year old, Kevin slapping my hand on his way to the ring, and being literally star struck as I told my aunt ‘Kev gave me 5!’We wished we had them as brothers. We never knew what was going on behind the scenes and how bad it truly was for them.This one is gonna be an ugly cry for me. That’s how much they were part of my childhood.
Watching the trailer this could be interesting. And looking at Imdb I am already a little impressed that they found someone who they think can play Ric Flair. Although I am also a little disappointed that no one has been cast to play Andre the Giant (his last match was a battle royal won by Kerry). Mostly because I really want an Andre biopic.
Flair at least has a minor role to play in this story (as the champion who lost to and beat Kerry). Andre basically has no role.
I don’t know very much about the Von Erich’s but Andre was touring the territories in the 70’s and early 80’s which is I think when this movie is set. So it would make sense that he would have spent some time in their territory, so even a cameo appearance would be awesome.
I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t think this is a “fun cameo” kind of movie. This is more of a “thousand yard stare from the sheer grim horror and devastation” movie.
I doubt it will happen but it wouldn’t have to be some kind of fun, look at this, kind of cameo. Because even though Andre was an amazing character he was also a real person and from what Google tells me he did spend some time in the Texas territory of the Von Erich’s. His life story is amazing so just getting even a tiny bit of it in a movie would be really cool.Really what I want to see is an Andre the Giant biopic.
This story is not a happy story. I’m sure, since Kevin Von Erich is involved, there will be some kind of sorta triumphant thing at the end – maybe with Kevin watching his sons wrestle.
Fritz and Doris had six sons. They lost one to a freak childhood accident/negligence, another to an OD and three others to suicide. Kerry felt the need to cover up an amputated foot to keep Fritz happy. Mike and Chris broke their bodies trying to live up to him.This is not a “Hey, it’s Deadpool!” or “Wait, is that a Hidden Mickey?” kinda movie.
Who do you think could play Andre the Giant?
That would be really difficult to make work when they would need someone around Andre’s size, who kind of looks like him, and could act. Maybe if it was animated, but they don’t really make serious animated stories in Hollywood.
I wonder about that. The guy who played Andre in “Young Rock” was big but not Andre big and he was pretty good. I wonder if they could find someone who was pretty big and then do a bunch of forced perspective tricks to make him look giant. I mean they made Will Ferrell look 3 times as big as Bob Newhart. Or could they do it with GC/motion capture? How far off are we from making that look good enough for a serious movie?
There are serious movies that are traditionally animated. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Grave of the Fireflies, but there is nothing cartoonish about it and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. Done right, I think it would be the best option. I think my biggest fear is that they’d try to cover someone in prosthetics in a live action movie.
Steroids are cool
I wonder how they will handle Mike and Chris, who are the real tragic figures to me.
Mike weighed about the same as an Olsen Twin and Fritz still pushed him into it. He wanted to be a cameraman.
Chris was a literal runt of the litter – 5’4″ and asthmatic. Killed himself because he couldn’t do it.
Doris finally left that monster after that. I just can’t even imagine burying five of your six sons – three to suicide, one to OD and one to what sounds like a negligent accident.
As a wrestling fan, I know what’s coming so I’m interested in seeing others reactions to the story because man is it sad and tragic
Lots of low angle shots of these vanilla midgets to make them look taller. With that being said, this looks decent and we get the lovely Maura Tierney.
I first saw the Von Erichs in my late teens. We had a C band satellite dish, so I could pick up KTVT out of Dallas. I’d watch the WCCW show every Saturday night. I started just after David passed away, and saw the whole run up to the Memorial Show where Kerry beat Flair for the belt. In addition to the Von Erichs, there wasKoko B. Ware, One Man Gang, Manny Fernandez, Gentleman Chris Adams, Gino Hernandez, the Freebirds, Skandar Akbar, and of course Iceman King Parsons – “That’s the way things be sometimes, HAVE MERCY!”
Only thing I can think about when I hear wrestling + iron claw
I remember seeing the various Von Erichs on Wrestling at the Chase in St. Louis. One thing that struck me even back then was that outside of Kerry, they weren’t very big. They would have to put on 50 pounds each to make it in modern pro wrestling.
Have you seen modern pro wrestling? The men no longer have to pump themselves with steroids to become a star. There are still muscular behemoths but there are guys who wouldn’t look out of place in an average office making names for themselves.Not to say there aren’t complainers who are sad about these changes and get angry about the “vanilla m*dg*ts” in promotions like AEW. It bothers them to no end that the likes of Orange Cassidy and Darby Allin are two of the most popular stars in the company.
I see WWE off and on (mostly off), and it seems to me that there are precious few wrestlers under 200 pounds. Kerry was the only Von Erich that I would put at over 200 pounds, and he was significantly larger than his brothers. That was part of their appeal, that they were average guys, not muscleheads, and not huge lardasses. most of them could buy clothes off the rack, I don’t think a whole lot of top-level modern pro wrestlers can.
You really should give AEW a peek.
I’m waiting for Queen of the Ring to go back into production and finish (stopped filming because of the strike). Emily Bett Rickards as Mildred Burke should be fun.