Man Like DeReiss’ Mania week grannies in movie talks
One of the most heartwarming stories of WrestleMania week may soon be coming to the silver screen.
Nick Barton—producer of such films as Calendar Girls and The Full Monty—has shown interest in making a movie about a group of grandmothers who befriended English wrestler Man Like DeReiss last April.
“When I first heard about this story in May, it reminded me of Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots, which Harbour Pictures and I produced for Disney and Buena Vista,” Barton said.
“I immediately contacted DeReiss and the Welsh nanas. I believe this extraordinary story could make a really brilliant and successful movie and am now working on the next steps towards its production.”
The story began on a plane in the United Kingdom. Four grandmothers headed to Las Vegas to scatter the ashes of one of their husbands found DeReiss (real name DeReiss Gordon) in what they thought was one of their seats. It turned out DeReiss was in the right spot and the women were mistaken, but he ended up starting a conversation and inviting them to watch his match over the weekend.
The ladies took DeReiss up on his offer.
“We didn’t know what was going on,” said Susie Matthews, one of the grandmothers involved. “We were all dressed up like Sex and the City, and there were thousands of people walking around with long beards down to their bellies and baseball caps … and there’s us, all dolled up.
“We were watching it and we were traumatized. We were like, ‘what on earth is going on here?’ They were flying out of the ring.”
DeReiss and the ladies reunited in May. Then they spoke to BBC Radio Wales Breakfast about Barton and his plans for a possible film.
“When we’d first met, we’d laughed that this should be a movie,” said Lynn Crawford, another of the grandmothers. “Four nanas and a wrestler! It’d be brilliant.”
“I couldn’t believe it at first,” said Gordon. “Then I checked it out and was like, ‘Wow! A movie.’ This could happen. There’s a way to go but we believe this would be a great movie.”
