Director Sam Neave, Producer Charles B. Wessler Team For Doc On Scottish Football Club Partick Thistle

Matt Grobar
·3-min read

EXCLUSIVE: Director Sam Neave (The Jinx: Part Two) and Academy Award-winning producer Charles B. Wessler (Green Book) commenced production in May on a feature-length doc surrounding the Scottish football club, Partick Thistle.

Neave’s documentary will follow Partick Thistle FC and its fans during the 2024-2025 season as they attempt to gain promotion back into the Premiership, the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League, having been relegated to play in lower divisions at the end of the 2017-2018 season.

More from Deadline

Partick Thistle stands out compared to many other clubs as more than 70% is owned by the fanbase, who have been making strides to improve the club’s stability and competitiveness in the SPFL without the financial support of a high-net-worth owner. The documentary will examine football fandom and what it means to be passionate about a club that doesn’t always deliver results.

Donald McClymont, a lifelong fan of the team and now a minority owner, will exec produce the project alongside Wessler. The project is currently seeking acquisition for worldwide distribution.

In a statement to Deadline, McClymont observed, “Partick Thistle has been around for almost 150 years and there’s no doubt in my mind that we belong in the Premiership. We’ve come desperately close to getting promoted the past two years and we’re all hoping this is the year we make it back up.”

Stated Neave, “As sports fans we don’t always get to pick our teams. Watching my first match at Firhill Stadium wasn’t some glamorous event but it immediately made me want to tell the story of the relationship between these fans and their team.”

Wessler called the story “the perfect antidote to the current climate of lavish spending and celebrity investors in football,” adding, “This is a team that understands nobody is coming to rescue them from above and a fanbase which knows better than to take victory for granted.”

Working in film and video across the narrative, documentary and art worlds for two decades, Neave was most recently a writer, producer and editor on HBO’s The Jinx: Part Two. As a writer-director, he has made three features, the first of which, Cry Funny Happy, premiered at Sundance and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Most recently, he helmed the drama Almost in Love, featuring Alan Cumming and Alex Karpovsky.

Collaborating frequently with filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly over the course of his 40-plus year career, Wessler won the Best Picture Oscar in 2019 as producer of the former’s Green Book. Previous projects with the brothers include Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, Me, Myself & Irene, Shallow Hal, and Dumb and Dumber To, among others. Most recently, he produced the Apple Original Film Palmer starring Justin Timberlake, which released in 2021.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories