As hard as it is to fathom, Tucson filmmaker Peter Leon had never heard of the backyard game of cornhole until he spent time at a Tucson resort last fall.
As the Tucson native was relaxing in his room one night, he flipped on ESPN, and there it was, teams tossing bean bags into a hole on angled boards while sportscasters called out the action with the same intensity and seriousness they brought to covering NBA and NFL games.
He was blown away.
“I couldn’t get my mind around it,” Leon recalled. “It’s one of those things that after you’re introduced to something, then all of a sudden you start seeing it everywhere.”
And that got him to thinking the crazy kind of thoughts that often come to his mind when his brain goes into filmmaking mode.
What if there’s a strung-out guy who’s deeply in debt to his drug dealer, and he’s running out of time and options to repay her before she makes good on threats to do him in.
What if this guy happens to be a pretty decent cornhole player, one who can lob the bean bag into the hole more times than not.
And what if there’s a statewide cornhole tournament with a $25,000 payoff that would take care of all of his problems?
That’s the premise of Leon’s new film “The Lords of Cornhole,” which he co-wrote with his go-to collaborator J. Patrick Ohlde. The film, produced by Djo Life and Carol Cardenas, premieres at The Loft Cinema on Sunday, Sept. 10.
“It’s the world’s greatest crime-comedy-cornhole sports movie ever,” Leon joked.
“The Lords of Cornhole” stars Tucson resident Alex Kack (aka “Green shirt guy”) as Randall, whose debilitating drug habit has put him at near deadly odds with his dealer. He owes her $20,000 and he has two months to pay, or she’ll kill him. That’s when a friend proposes that the only way Randall can raise that kind of money that fast is to enter and win the state Cornhole Championship.
Of course, a Peter Leon film wouldn’t be complete without cursing and violence, with subtle nods to sci-fi.
“A Pete movie is kind of a genre all its own,” said Kack, who has acted in the last two of Leon’s movies — the 2020 holiday-themed vampire thriller “The Last Kiss” and his 2019 low-budget comedy-thriller “Three Nights In Hell.” “All of his films are these weird genre mashups and they are clearly influenced by late 1990s, early 2000s (period genre) comedies, but there are also sci-fi layers and heavy intentional B movie aesthetics that are all interesting overlays. ... It’s kind of this weird grab bag of these different things that are Pete’s tastes and influence and he kind of mashes them together and they never sound like they should work together or go together, but they are (imaginative) and fun.”
Aaron Wilson kneels in the water in a scene from “The Lords of Cornhole” with Peter Leon, center, and Gregory Wheaton.
Kack, who became an internet celebrity in 2019 when a video of him wearing a green shirt and laughing during a Tucson immigration hearing went viral, is the biggest name in the cast. Most are Leon’s friends and friends of friends who volunteer their time and talents to his films.
Leon finances his films, which are a passion project, largely through crowd-source funding; $4,000 of his $7,000 budget for “The Lords of Cornhole” came from a Kickstarter campaign that he launched in early July, and the rest was from private funding, Leon said.
Given the popularity of cornhole, Leon is hoping the movie will find a place on streaming sites, including Amazon, Apple Music and Spotify.
“The cornhole community is huge,” he said, adding that last month he was a guest on “Big ASP Cornhole Podcast“ out of Cincinnati to talk about the movie. “But every time I say the word ‘cornhole,’ I feel like I need to preface: ‘I’m talking about the game.’”
Sunday’s screening at the Loft, 3233 E. Speedway, starts at 7 p.m. Admission is $10.
Get more information at loftcinema.org/film/the-lords-of-cornhole.
Sean Berube retired from the Tucson Police Department. Now he plays a cop on TV and in movies.
