I anticipated the book would be filled with bold claims, anecdotal evidence, and delusional grandeur. In the book, we get to learn of Grosso’s own experience in the poker world, his degenerate friend Munchy (who presumably became the basis for the character Worm), and how he believes his screenplay wound up as Rounders, unbeknownst to him of course. It became clear right off the bat that Grosso wasn’t just an attention-seeking poker player, but that he had actually written a poker screenplay back in the 1990s and genuinely believed that it was stolen by Miramax and adapted into what became Rounders. Thoughts on Dirty Dealingĭirty Dealing turned out to be more enjoyable than anticipated. A genuine court case at least added some validity to the argument, so I opted to give it a read. Was this just some deadbeat Hollywood screenwriter turned poker player looking to cash in on the popularity of Rounders? I then learned that while the book was published last year, the whole drama actually took place back in the early 2000s, and there was an actual court case to back it up.

When I first heard of the book, I was skeptical of its legitimacy. Does he have a case or are the similarities just an illusion the mind plays on a creator? Perhaps there are only five stories in Hollywood, as his lawyer points out, and no idea is truly original. As the book claims, it is “part comic legal thriller, part nail-biting poker memoir … look at one man’s fight to get the credit he believes he deserves. Grosso, who was recently a guest on the PokerNews Podcast, accused Miramax of stealing his screenplay and turning it into Rounders.

Miramax – Waging War with Harvey Weinstein, and the Screenplay that Changed Hollywood by Jeffrey Allan Grosso. While immersing myself in all things Rounders, I learned about a poker book that was published in 2022, one that was directly linked to the cult classic film. That included five things you didn’t know about the movie, an interview with Johnny Chan, and remembering the time Doyle Brunson busted Matt Damon from the 1998 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Last month, PokerNews spent a significant amount of time celebrating the 25th anniversary of the beloved poker movie Rounders.

Original rounders poker movie