Sam Walker’s “Fantasyland” was a mostly enjoyable diary of one fantasy baseball neophytes attempts to take on the stat game’s heavy hitters, but can such a tome really serve as the inspiration for a feature-length film? Too late, it already has, and while “Fantasyland” won’t hit nearly as many screens as “Hot Tub Time Machine”, it might be particularly relevant for CSTB readers. From Indiewire’s Liz Cook (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
Director Stephen Palgon talks about the project™s challenges and how he feels audiences will take to œFantasyland.
“I think that we had a few challenges with œFantasyland. One of them of course was how to get Jed to be able to talk with his players. It wasn™t often easy to get Major League Baseball teams to buy into the concept of having Jed come on the field and talk to the players on his fantasy team. Another challenge was our main character, Jed Latkin. Jed was an amazing find for our film and a terrific character for us to follow, but he definitely lives on the extreme edge of Fantasyland. As Jed says œI try to fit life and work into fantasy baseball. It is his his top priority. The challenge was that because Jed was so extreme he would do and say things that might turn off our audience and with Jed being the main character who we wanted to audience to ideally root for, we needed to make sure that they did not tune him out and abandoned his journey. The process of making this work came largely in the editing process and deciding what moments would allow Jed™s unique character traits shine but also not overtake the film.”