Alan Ritchson is back in the world of comedy with Playdate, and director Luke Greenfield can’t wait for the surprises to come from the film. Ritchson stars in the film as Jeff, a charming stay-at-home dad who, after meeting down-on-his luck stepparent Brian at the park, sets up an afternoon outing between their kids and each other at a local arcade. Unbeknownst to Brian, however, is that Jeff is hiding a big secret that leads to a fight for survival against a ruthless team of mercenaries.
Alongside Ritchson, who is reuniting with Reacher platform Prime Video for the film, the ensemble Playdate cast includes Kevin James as Brian, Sarah Chalke, Stephen Root, Isla Fisher and Resident Alien‘s Alan Tudyk as the film’s central villain. The movie, which is premiering on November 12, is helmed by Greenfield, best known for the likes of The Girl Next Door and Let’s Be Cops, and penned by Scrubs vet Neil Goldman.
In anticipation of the movie’s release, ScreenRant interviewed Luke Greenfield to discuss Playdate. While the movie’s initial announcement came with the news that Ritchson and James were both cast, the director revealed that the former was the first to be cast in the film, with he and Ritchson having previously attempted to work together on a “romantic comedy at Sony” that they ultimately “couldn’t get going“:
When I got this script for Playdate, I immediately sent it to him, as we were dying to work together. I immediately sent it to him, and I said, “This could bring you back into comedy, dude. This could bring you back to the Blue Mountain State [era].” A little more grounded of a character, and he was in right away. So, we were off and running.
The subsequent years saw Ritchson, Greenfield, Goldman and producer Jason Benoit collaborating with one another to really hone in on the script and flesh out the star’s character. The director pointed to Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket as being a key inspiration for Jeff, expressing his love for Owen Wilson’s Dignan and “adults that are like 14-year-old kids that are impulsive” and “that don’t really live in our reality“.
Greenfield went on to praise Ritchson for having “just nailed” his vision of Jeff in Playdate, while also saying he’s told everyone “this is gonna make him the biggest action comedy star“. Describing the Reacher vet as being “so fu—ng funny“, he acknowledged that while Ritchson is certainly skilled in action and is “a good-looking motherf—er“, the star is also going to surprise audiences with the “dramatic stuff” he tackles in the film:
There’s a lot of heartfelt stuff, it’s about fathers and sons, and it’s about sometimes very tough father-son relationships. He’s really gonna surprise you. A lot of people cry in this movie. It’s pretty crazy. So he came on first, and then I’d never met Kevin James. He came on second, and then came Isla Fisher and Paul Walter Hauser and Alan Tudyk and Stephen Root, and Sarah Chalke. It’s incredible.
Prior to Playdate, Greenfield has experience in the field of buddy comedies, helping conceive the base idea for Role Models and writing, producing and directing the Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr.-led Let’s Be Cops. As such, not only was he in familiar territory with the Prime Video action comedy, he was also keen to bring the energy of letting Ritchson and James improvise with one another, feeling “it’s got to be authentic” and “have that real comedic rhythm” to it:
This is not some big, huge, broad comedy where everything’s unrealistic. There’s some huge twists in the movie, but when it comes to characters, I love to keep things very grounded and real, so that you can really feel what they’re going through and you can relate. Everyone’s gonna relate to this movie. Every parent, every person who’s had a parent. So, yes, sorry, long-winded answer, but I really encourage going off book. I really encourage that when they feel something, it’s, “Let’s try this. Let’s try this. Oh, that’s a f—-ng good idea. Let’s turn it around and do this.” I think that’s the best filmmaking.
This encouragement even led to Greenfield having “ruined so many takes on” Playdate, admitting he’s “a laugher” and prefers to be in close proximity to the actors during filming, which means “they can hear me either burst out laughing or giggling“. This even led to the production having to “do some ADR to get my f—-ng laughter out of the background“, which Greenfield says some will be seen in the movie’s blooper reel playing over the end credits.
The director also described the film as “an action comedy like the ones that I grew up on“, citing the likes of Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon as inspirations for his approach to the material. He went on to recall getting the spec script from Goldman, the writer’s feature debut, and being taken aback by the “major twists” of its plot, calling the film a “fu—ng roller coaster“:
As you saw in the trailer, as soon as you get to a certain part, there’s a first-act turn, where everything is going straight forward, and then, boom, it goes in a complete direction. Neil is a master. The dialogue is hilarious, we had developed the script for a long time before I got Alan.
Greenfield went on to reveal that the movie had far more modest of a budget than the trailer may lead some to believe, describing Playdate as being “my first independent film” and that “it was not a huge budget at all“. Calling himself a “studio boy” since his first film with the Rob Schneider-led The Animal, he found putting together some of his new movie’s bigger action set pieces as “challenging“:
I’d never made an independent film before. I love it, but as far as budget and all sorts of challenges that an independent film brings, oh, I experienced them.
In addition to getting to speak with Greenfield, ScreenRant also is excited to exclusively debut a new clip for Playdate. The video is part of Brian and Jeff’s venture to a Chuck E. Cheese’s-like arcade for the eponymous outing, with Ritchson’s character utilizing a variety of things from the arcade to fight a knife-wielding mercenary, as well as inadvertently fighting some of the innocent employees in mascot costumes. Check out the clip below:
Playdate begins streaming on Prime Video on November 12.
- Release Date
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November 12, 2025
- Director
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Luke Greenfield
- Producers
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Jeff Sussman, Kevin James, Neil Goldman, Alan Ritchson, Dan Spilo, Mark Fasano, Sean Patrick O’Reilly, Jeffrey Greenstein, Nathan Klingher, Jason Benoit