Hooters Is Getting Its Own Origin Movie, With an Emmy-Nominated Director and the Founders Behind It
A film titled Hooters: The Movie is in development, independently produced by the restaurant chain's original founding partners and directed by Jon Rosenbaum, according to Deadline (Deadline).
The screenplay comes from Hooters co-founder Ed Droste, Phil Olson and Chuck Melcher. It draws on the real events behind the chain's founding in 1983, centring on two lifelong friends from a small Iowa town named Ted and Lenny. Ted becomes infatuated with a woman called Diane after spotting her in a spring break television commercial and convinces a reluctant Lenny to join him on a road trip to Clearwater Beach, Florida, to track her down. In the story, Diane becomes the very first Hooters Girl.
The original Hooters restaurant opened in Clearwater in 1983, and the production is staying close to those roots. filming is being eyed for November, primarily in the Tampa and Clearwater area of Florida.
Rosenbaum, an Emmy-nominated film-maker whose previous credits include Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp and Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls, called the origin story "the perfect combination of a hilarious buddy comedy and an inspiring biopic." He added that the film is "mostly true." Droste, who is producing, put it more bluntly: the movie captures how the founders "didn't know what we were doing, but had a great time doing it."
Casting is already under way, led by Lisa London and Catherine Stroud of London/Stroud Casting. No cast members have been announced. Rosenbaum is represented by Ross Fineman at Fineman Entertainment and Brent Jordan Sherman at the Characters Talent Agency.
For a brand that has spent four decades on highway billboards and pop-culture punchlines, a founding-partner-produced feature is an unusual play. Independent production — meaning the film is not financed or distributed by a major studio — leaves the project without a confirmed distributor so far, though a November start would put a completed film in the conversation for 2027 release slots.
That timetable is not unusual for an independently packaged feature, where sales to distributors often happen after the film is shot or at a festival marketplace rather than before cameras roll.
