Dinner for Schmucks is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Jay Roach and based on Francis Veber s 1998 French film Le Dîner de Cons.

Starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, with Jemaine Clement, Jeff Dunham, Bruce Greenwood, and Ron Livingston in supporting roles, the film tells the story of a rising executive who finds out that his work superiors host a dinner celebrating the idiocy of their guests. He questions it when he is invited, just as he befriends a man who would be the perfect guest.

Dinner for Schmucks was released in theaters on July 30, 2010, by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures and grossed $86.9 million against a $69 million budget.

Plot

Tim Conrad finds a way to get wealthy businessman Martin Mueller as a client. Impressed by Tim s ingenuity, his boss Lance Fender says he is a candidate for a promotion but wants to get to know him better. He invites him to a dinner in which he must find and bring an eccentric person with a special talent to be mocked by the executives; the winner earns a trophy and the executive that brought him or her gets glory.

Tim excitedly tells his long-time girlfriend, Julie, about the possible promotion and dinner but she is offended by the idea of inviting strange people to a dinner just to mock them, telling him to refuse the invitation.

The next day, Tim accidentally hits Barry Speck with his car as he is trying to retrieve a dead mouse from the road. Witnessing Barry s bizarre behavior, including taxidermy and arranging mice into dioramas based on famous artwork, Mousterpieces , Tim realizes he is the perfect idiot for the dinner. Julie finds out Tim is inviting Barry to the dinner and leaves their apartment after Tim insists he must go, as he has to in order to continue providing for them.

Barry shows up at Tim s apartment thinking the dinner event was that very evening, accidentally inviting over Darla, a female pro wrestler Tim slept with once, who is obsessed with him. After scolding Barry for inviting Darla over, explaining who she is, Barry takes it upon himself to keep Darla away from Tim, confusing Julie for her. Their conversation leads her to believe Tim is cheating on her and she once again leaves. When Tim realizes what Barry has done, he believes Julie may be at Kieran Vollard s, an artist whose work she is selling at a gallery and who has expressed interest in her.

Tim and Barry sneak into Vollard s apartment, but learn he is at his ranch. They return to Tim s and Barry lets Darla in. Julie calls and asks Tim if he s having an affair, Darla steals the phone, stuffing it down her pants. The call ends abruptly, making Julie believe he is cheating. As Tim hides in his bedroom trying to reach Julie, Darla and Barry have a bar-style fight, scaring Darla away.

Barry takes Tim to his IRS office to find Vollard s ranch address, meeting Barry s boss and rival, Therman Murche. He claims to have the talent of mind control, and has authored a book about it. He also had stolen Barry s ex-wife after Barry caught them cheating. Barry, Tim and Therman have a strange encounter, which results in Tim getting audited. Tim leaves the next day for a brunch with Mueller and his wife, but Barry crashes it, bringing Darla along pretending to be Julie. Tim is pushed into asking Darla to marry him, and Julie walks in during the proposal. Tim and Barry chase Julie down to Vollard s ranch, where Tim finally snaps at Barry about his actions.

To his surprise, Tim finds Barry already at the dinner party, having forgiven Tim for his outburst. Barry s antics along with his Mousterpieces are a hit with the group, and he is seemingly a shoo-in for the trophy. Unexpectedly, however, Therman arrives as the guest of another executive, embarrassing Barry with his mind control. Tim then tells Barry everything and, after some encouragement, gets Barry to defeat Therman by using his own powers of brain control .

Fender congratulates Tim on bringing Barry to the dinner as his idiot, and Tim, offended, insults Fender before defending Barry. The other guests then learn they were brought to the dinner only to be mocked, leading to a chaotic brawl between the guests and the executives. The brawl ultimately leads to Mueller losing his finger and prized family ring and Fender s mansion burning down.

After returning to Tim s apartment, Tim and Julie manage to reconcile with Barry s help. Tim is fired, as is Julie, after Barry makes Vollard realize it would be a problem to have her continue working for him. Tim and Julie marry, Barry gets to have sex with Darla and also does some artwork with Vollard while Therman writes a book in a mental hospital.

Cast

• Steve Carell as Barry Speck
• Paul Rudd as Tim Conrad
• Stéphanie Szostak as Julie
• Jemaine Clement as Kieran Vollard
• Lucy Punch as Darla
• Zach Galifianakis as Therman Murch
• Bruce Greenwood as Lance Fender
• Ron Livingston as Caldwell
• Andrea Savage as Robin
• David Walliams as Martin Mueller
• Lucy Davenport as Birgit Mueller
• P. J. Byrne as Davenport
• Octavia Spencer as Madame Nora
• Jeff Dunham as Lewis / Diane
• Chris O Dowd as Marco
• Kristen Schaal as Susana
• Patrick Fischler as Vincenzo
• Randall Park as Henderson
• Larry Wilmore as Williams
• Blanca Soto as Catherine
• Nick Kroll as Josh
• Alex Borstein as Martha Speck

Production

The budget for the film was split between the distributor Paramount Pictures, as well as DreamWorks Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment. The production budget was $69 million, but with tax credits the cost came in at $62.7 million. Filming of the dinner scene took place at the same location that was used for Wayne Manor in the 1960s Batman television series.

Dinner for Schmucks is the American adaptation of the French film Le Dîner de Cons (literally, The Dinner of Idiots ). The film retains many familiar elements of the original, with the basic plot, including the involvement of the taxation authorities and the love triangle around the main character Tim. In the remake, however, Tim is made much more sympathetic (this is the first dinner he has participated in, and he is not in fact having an affair or deliberately cheating on his taxes), and the actual dinner is shown. Director Roach describes the film as inspired by the original rather than a remake.

Title

Debate ensued about the title s usage of the Yiddish word schmucks which is a mild cultural insult similar to idiot which technically refers to male genitals . Debbie Schlussel asked whether the title should have been Dinner for Schlemiels as it would better describe the clumsy character played by Steve Carell. Responding in The New York Times, critic Michael Cieply determined that the intent was to be ambiguous as to which of the two main characters, played by Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, was the intended idiot.

In The Forward, Laura Hodes suggested that schmucks correctly referred instead to the behavior of the film s antagonists, the bosses of Rudd s character.

Release

Dinner for Schmucks was pushed back a week to July 30, 2010, to avoid competition with Salt and Inception.

Marketing

As part of promoting the film, the website Funny or Die featured videos of Jemaine Clement in character as Kieran Vollard.

The film s first trailer debuted with Date Night, Death at a Funeral, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The second trailer was shown before select screenings of The A-Team, Get Him to the Greek, Grown Ups, and Inception.

Box office

Dinner for Schmucks made $8.4 million on its first day, ranking number two at the box office, behind Inception. The film earned $23.5 million on its opening weekend, placing it second overall for the weekend of July 30 to August 1. It ultimately grossed $73 million in North America and $13.4 million internationally, for a total of $86.4 million worldwide. The film was released in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2010, and opened on #2, behind The Last Exorcism.

Home media

Dinner for Schmucks was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on January 4, 2011.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 42% based on 191 reviews, with an average rating of 5.40/10. The site s critical consensus reads: It doesn t honor its source material—or its immensely likable leads—as well as it should, but Dinner for Schmucks offers fitfully nourishing comedy. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews . Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4:

The genius of this version depends on the performance by Steve Carell, who plays Barry Speck as a man impervious to insult and utterly at peace with himself. He s truly a transcendent idiot.

Accolades

In 2010, Steve Carell was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Actor for his performance as Barry Speck.

Year	2010
ReleaseDate	2010-07-30
RuntimeMins	114
RuntimeStr	1h 54min
Plot	After he finds out that his work superiors host a dinner celebrating the idiocy of their special guests, a rising executive questions the merits of his invitation just as he befriends a man who would be the perfect guest.
Awards	Awards, 1 nomination
Directors	Jay Roach
Writers	David Guion, Michael Handelman, Francis Veber
Stars	Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Stephanie Szostak
Produced by	Gary Barber,Sacha Baron Cohen,Roger Birnbaum,Josh King,Laurie MacDonald,Walter F. Parkes,Jon Poll,Jay Roach,Amy Sayres,Francis Veber
Music by	Theodore Shapiro
Cinematography by	Jim Denault
Film Editing by	Alan Baumgarten,Jon Poll
Casting By	Jeanne McCarthy
Production Design by	Michael Corenblith
Art Direction by	Christopher Burian-Mohr,Lauren E. Polizzi
Set Decoration by	Susan Benjamin
Costume Design by	Mary E. Vogt
Makeup Department	David LeRoy Anderson,Allan A. Apone,Elena Arroy,Roxane Griffin,Barry A. Koper,Susan Laprelle,Louis Lazzara,Peter Tothpal,Stephen Bettles,Adam Brandy,Kimberly Carlson,David Danon,Connie Grayson Criswell,Camille Henderson,Brad Look,Joy Zapata
Production Management	Kirby Adams,Sada Bhuvad,Lenny Vullo,Richard Stirling
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director	Marcei A. Brown,Josh King,Jon Poll,Brian Relyea,Thomas Robinson Harper,Marc Newland,Molly Rodriguez
Art Department	Ross Anderson,Greg Aprahamian,Samantha Avila,David Barrington-Holt,Joanne Bloomfield,David Christopher Campbell,Lorrie Campbell,Bridget Cardenas,Jerry Casillas,Tony Castagnola,Charles Chiodo,Edward Chiodo,Rachel Chiodo,Stephen Chiodo,Leslie Coogan,Don Cooke,Colin Dennis,John David Diersing,Michael Duncan,Kenneth Garrett,Penelope Franco Gilmore,Michael Glynn,Laura Grijalva,Paul Arthur Hartman,Frank Ippolito,Holiday Landa,Larry Laurent,Sean Mannion,Richard Martinez,John Hammer Maxwell,Ralph Mock,Will Montano,Greg O Donohue,Shane Prigmore,Joel Prihoda,Olivia Ramirez,Eugene P. Rizzardi,Eric Rosenberg,Doug Rosenberger,Jonathan S. Rudnick,Tony Salazar,Ralph Sarabia,Terry Scott,Sarah Snyder,Hans Soto,Anthony Syracuse,Sally Thornton,Heidi Tyler,Mark Tyler,Joel Venti,Ciro Vuoso,Lawson Brown,Chris Buchinsky,Oliver Dear,Daren Dochterman,James Eustermann,Nicole Gold,Amber Haley,Anne Marie Hamill,Brent Heyning,Tom Ivanjack,Ryan Jacoby,Jane Kilkenny,Shinhee Kim,Holiday Landa,John Markovich,Richard A. McCarthy,Rick O Brien,Jerrold Ridenour,Mireya Romo-Bowen,Meaghan Ross,Gregory Sesma,Debralee Shelby,Jeff Shewbert,Erik Soderstrom,Randy Syracuse,Joshua Towers,Gene Warren III
Sound Department	Jason Bales,Bill Banyai,Sarah Bourgeois,Bill Burns,Chris Carpenter,Jenna Dalla Riva,Chris Diamond,Alison Fisher,Brooke Graeff,Wayne Griffin,Jack Heeren,Scott Jacobs,Scott A. Jennings,Jonathan Klein,Andy Koyama,Goro Koyama,Michael Magill,Andy Malcolm,Ken McLaughlin,Michael O Farrell,Jordan O Neill,Fred Peck III,Joel Shryack,Greg Steele,Jason Stevens,Don White,Greg Zimmerman,David Raines
Special Effects by	Michael Clarke,Scott Garcia,Brian Poor,Garth Steinheimer,R. Bruce Steinheimer,Rick Thompson,Chris Alexander,Jim Charmatz,Matt Corrigan,Erin Dell amore,Damian Fisher,Frank Ippolito,Jason Lopes,Aimee Macabeo,Sarah McGaw,Michelle Nyree,J. Alan Scott,Kimberly Scott,Cole Taylor
Visual Effects by	Bill Church,Patrick Clancey,Lance Lee Davis,Michael Dillon,Johannes Gamble,Anne Graham,David D. Johnson,Sean Kennedy,Steve Koch,Eric Stull,Thomas Mathai
Stunts	Michael T. Brady,J.J. Dashnaw,Mark Ginther,Michael Hansen,Kelsey Harper,Riley Harper,Thomas Robinson Harper,Will Harper,Shawn Kautz,Oliver Keller,Billy D. Lucas,Erik Solky,Amy Lynn Tuttle,Jonathan Arthur,Gregory J. Barnett,Shellita Boxie,Troy Lindsay Brown,Clay Cullen,Oliver Keller,Dalila Orozco,Michael Runyard,Erik Solky,Keith Woulard
Camera and Electrical Department	Kevin Aragon,Garrett Benson,Corwin A. Bibb,Ross Coscia,Christopher Crivier,Kenny Davis,Louis DiCesare,Malcolm Doran,Tim Durr,Tracy Estes,David Eubank,Marco Fargnoli,Scott Fieldsteel,Juan Frausto Jr.,John Garrett,Christopher Glasgow,Roy C. Granada,Geoffrey Haley,Michael J. Hogan,Gregory Irwin,Greg Kurtz,T. Sano Kwong,Byron McCulloch,Doug Oh,Bruce Olinder,Jerry Patton,Martin Reder,Nikola Ristic,Rocky Rodriguez,Patrick Rousseau,Don Selsor,Jeremy Selsor,Moulaye Sene,Danny Stephens,Sean Tanner,Rodney Taylor,Fred Troeskin,John Waldo,Merie Weismiller Wallace,Niel Williams,Peter Albert,Todd Avery,Michelle Baker,Scott Dropkin,Danny Durr,Anthony Erlandson,Kenneth Estes,Robert Eyslee,Michael Fitzgerald,Tom Heigl,David Leite,Aaron Marquette,Ryan Polack,Lyle Robbins,Michael Sapienza,Carl A. Vidnic
Animation Department	Bradford Plows
Casting Department	Nicole Abellera,Ranjani Brow,Wendy Hoffman,Jessica Munks,Tammy L. Smith,Dixie Webster
Costume and Wardrobe Department	Valentina Aulisi,David Butler,Laura Frecon,Jalene Murphy,Donna O Neal,Pat Lopez Padilla,Devon Renee Spencer,Pamela Wise,Sharon Fauvel
Editorial Department	Ben Estrada,Jermaine R. Gill,Élodie Ichter,Ken Lebre,Curtis Lindersmith,Yvan Lucas,Kenneth Marsten,Christopher McDonald,Tamara Meem,Harry Muller,Tom Reiser,Benjamin Sax,Phillip Dawe,Rachel Faith Hanson
Location Management	Gerard Averill,W. Harry Fortuna,Justin W. Hill,Robert Paulsen,Julianne Eggold,Alexander Kivlen,Tom Lackey
Music Department	Pete Anthony,Chris Bartholomew,Tom Brown,Bryan Carrigan,Kevin Connolly,Sandy DeCrescent,George Doering,Thomas S. Drescher,Chris Fogel,Matt Franko,James Harrah,Jim Hoffman,Jim Honeyman,Randy Kerber,Jon Kull,Tommy Morgan,Jenni Olson,Jasper Randall,Peter Rotter,Marni Sanders,Naomi Sato,Dave Stone,Mike Watts,M.B. Gordy,Mark Graham,Ludwig Göransson,The Hollywood Studio Symphony,Victor Pesavento,Aron Pinsky,Ben Schor,Steven L. Smith,Kevin Teasley
Script and Continuity Department	Diane Durant
Transportation Department	James Cantoni,Craig Fehrman,Jesse Hynes,Bart Johnson,Walter McClain,Jason Sanders,Erik Coutts,Mel Langford,Cecil McClain,Margo McKay,Antonio Molina
Additional Crew	Teri J. Barber,Taylor Benavides,Randin Brown,Kim Buttlar,Andrew Canton,Casey Carmichael,Paul Conti,Leslie Coogan,David Covarrubias,Anthony Davis,Josh Deceuster,Jordan Delgado,Justin Dickey,Joy Ellison,Bruce Fowler,Donna Glasser-Hancock,Michelle Graham,Rick Granville,Seth Hays,Matt Heimlich,Jennifer K. Jacobs,Saj Jayasinghe,Richard J. Landon,Brigette Lester,Alexa Song Lindenthaler,Lindsay MacGowan,Larry Madrid,Tamara Maellaro,Kevin Maier,Mike Manzel,Marybeth Martin-Eck,Jason Matthews,Nick Mestrundrea,Stewart Scott Mitchell,Marie Nashold,Jeffrey Keith Negus,Bennett Oliver,Paulette Osorio,J. Papuchyan,Daniel A. Parker,Ryan Radefeld,Mahesh Ramanathan,David Romano,Patrick Rummans,Robert Scott Schweitzer,Mark Scott,Zoe Steinheimer,Riyoko Tanaka,Marlena Thomas,Richard W. Welch,David Keegan Zall,Keegan Zall,Jesse J. Adams,Daniel Beals,Luis Bonachea,Christian Butcher,Laura Caulfield,Elena Chernock,Joshua Lou Friedman,Yoni Howard-Yashar,Luke Maxcy,Sommer Nguyen,Juan Pacheco,Aurora Ann Quinones,Bob Riley,Melanie Tolbert,Ronnie Vaccaro,Daniel Woltosz
Thanks	Carrye Gilliland Glazar,Susanna Hoffs,Jennifer Perini
Genres	Comedy
Companies	Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment
Countries	USA
Languages	English
ContentRating	PG-13
ImDbRating	5.9
ImDbRatingVotes	106754
MetacriticRating	56
Keywords	smashing a bottle against a wall,wine,man wears eyeglasses,remake,american remake