How to Eat Fried Worms is a 2006 American children's comedy film written and directed by Bob Dolman.

Billy becomes the target of the school bully, Joe Guire, his two "toaders" Plug and Bradley, and the rest of his gang: Benjy, Techno-Mouth, Twitch, and Donny.

Billy sits behind Erika "Erk" Tansy, an unusually tall girl whom people make fun of.

Adam then takes them to his uncle Ed's restaurant The Brown Toad, and cooks up the second worm in an omelet.

After dinner, the boys go to a bait shop, where Billy eats the next two worms, "The Green Slusher" and "Radioactive Slime Delight" (where Donny puts the worm in the microwave), while the owner is out, but her unexpected return leads to her briefly chasing them for breaking into her bait shop.

He explains to Joe that the second worm was eaten by their principal, Burdock, when Adam accidentally put it in his omelet at the Brown Toad.

After Burdock returns to his office, the kids all run outside and celebrate as Billy and Joe both take the worms out of their pants and throw them into the air.

John August was hired to write the screenplay in his first paid screenwriting job and Thomas Schlamme was attached to direct.

[5] August chose not to acquire a screenwriting credit via WGA rules, as very little of his initial screenplay remained in the finalized product.

[6] Though the film and the book share the concept about a bet between boys to eat earthworms, the nature of the situation differs significantly.

ReelViews' James Berardinelli gave a mildly positive review (21⁄2 stars out of 4) but thought the potential audience too narrow: "It's aimed at pre-teen males and doesn't make many concessions to members of other demographics."

Even the best of the genre (like Holes and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) don't draw large audiences, so mediocre productions like this one face an uphill struggle.

[9] The Boston Globe's reviewer – Ty Burr – gave it a 2 stars out of 4 and said when comparing the book to the film: There's a kid named Billy, and he eats worms on a dare, and that's about all the movie has in common with its source.

"From a parent's viewpoint, two feet higher off the ground, How to Eat Fried Worms is lackadaisical stuff, easily the least of the unpretentious children's book adaptations produced by family-oriented Walden Media (Because of Winn-Dixie, Hoot, Holes).