Fool's Paradise is a 2023 American satirical comedy film written and directed by Charlie Day in his directorial debut.
The film tells the story of a down-on-his-luck publicist, who gets his lucky break when he discovers a mute man, recently released from a mental health facility, who looks just like a method actor that refuses to leave his trailer.
While making a biopic about Billy the Kid, a producer is incensed that method actor Sir Tom Bingsley refuses to leave his trailer.
After a bad decision to book Pronto as a cuckold in a pornographic film, Lenny has a heart attack due to his excessive consumption of energy drinks.
Pronto befriends Dagger, a homeless man who was formerly a famous actor, and saves his life, gaining media acclaim and the Key to the City by the Mayor.
It was announced in September 2018 that Charlie Day was set to make his directorial debut on the film El Tonto, in addition to writing and starring in it.
[4] The additions of Kate Beckinsale, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco, John Malkovich and Jillian Bell to the cast were announced the following month.
[5] In October 2018, Ray Liotta (in one of his final roles), Ken Jeong, Adrien Brody, Travis Fimmel, Dean Norris and Edy Ganem were added to the cast.
[6][7] In November 2018, it was announced that Katherine McNamara, Common, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, and Glenn Howerton had joined the cast.
[10] In February 2022, Day revealed in an interview that the film had undergone a week of reshoots in December 2021 with Jeong, Brody, Beckinsale, and Liotta after he wrote an additional 27 pages to the screenplay based on the advice of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who also suggested the film's initial title of El Tonto be discarded.
The website's consensus reads: "Fool's Paradise suggests Charlie Day may have a bright future as a director, but he'll need to find smarter and more consistently funny scripts.
"[16] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 27 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.