Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with The Iron Claw, which tells the saga of the wrestling Von Erich family in two hours.
It begins with Fritz Von Erich (Holt McAllany), who wrestled in the ’60s. When they were old enough, Fritz got his sons Kevin (Zac Efron) and David (Harris Dickinson) in the ring, eventually training Mike (Stanley Simons) too. Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) only turned to wrestling after his Olympic hopes in 1980 were dashed by the U.S. boycott.
The A24 film is named after the Von Erichs’ signature move, but like any biopic, consolidating the life of its subject requires craft. In the case of the Von Erich family, that meant four brothers were all the film could handle. Youngest brother Chris Von Erich, who took his own life at age 21, is not included.
Writer-director Sean Durkin does not shy away from the family tragedies though. David died of an intestinal rupture that may have been caused by wrestling injuries. Mike and Kerry both died by suicide, Mike after two years of suffering from toxic shock from a surgery for wrestling injuries, and Kerry after years of addiction to painkillers following surgery from a motorcycle accident.
Kevin believed the family was cursed, and the film shows him distancing himself from his wife (Lily James) and their newborn. Durkin had no contact with the Von Erich family prior to production, though Kevin told Efron he liked the film after a screening.
Durkin had followed the Von Erich family as a child wrestling fan. At a Los Angeles screening and Q&A, Durkin said he had to rein himself in with all the minutiae he wanted to include in telling their story onsceen.
“I’m obsessed with the detail and getting it right to the point where people have to tell me to calm down about wrestling details because I’ll just go off,” Durkin said. “I could tell you a wrestling timeline of each of the boys for a decade. To try and separate myself from that and be like, okay, it’s not important to the story. These matches are important to the story. This match is a mixture of these two matches. There’s a mixture of historical truth in them but then making them fit the narrative as well.”
Click below to read Durkin’s script.
More from this Story Arc
Read The Screenplay Series