TAMPA, Fla. — The two men who, in the original telling, were just trying to get to the beach have now decided that the getting-to-the-beach is a movie, and the movie is a buddy comedy, and the movie is a biopic, and the movie is, in the words of the people making it, both of those at once, which is a description that should be impossible and is, in fact, the entire pitch.

Hooters is making a film about how Hooters started. That is the whole premise, and the whole premise is that the restaurant did not start the way restaurants are supposed to start. Restaurants start because somebody wanted to cook. Hooters started because two friends from a small Iowa town got into a car, drove to Clearwater Beach, recruited a woman named Diane to be the original Hooters Girl, and then, in the words of the people producing it, were “accidentally” building a national phenomenon. The movie is about the accident.

"The film is not about a restaurant. The film is about two guys who had no idea what they were getting into, a crazy idea they were willing to bet everything on, and a wild journey that ended, against all probability, in a place where you can order a wing at eleven p.m. and no one asks why."

The setup, as the producers have framed it, is the setup of every great American origin story, except the thing that gets started is a place that sells wings. The project is being produced by the original partners, the two men who, in the story, are the ones in the car, and it is directed by an Emmy-nominated filmmaker from a screenplay written by a team of people whose credentials, taken together, suggest that the film is being treated with a seriousness that the subject matter, in its original form, did not require. The accident is being made into an event, and the event is being made into a genre.

The “wild journey” is, in the actual telling, a road trip. Two friends, a car, a beach, and a woman they recruited on arrival. That is the entire plot of the origin, and the movie has now decided that the entire plot of the origin is a buddy comedy. The comedy is not a thing they added. The comedy is the thing that was already there, wearing a 1983 flannel shirt, parked at a curb in Clearwater. Deadline ran the announcement with a quote from the director that could have been written by the two guys, and probably was, in the way that these things are written: “From the moment I first learned the Hooters origin story, I knew it would make an incredible movie.”

THE ORIGIN STORY, AS THE MOVIE TOLD IT

  • Starting location: a small town in Iowa
  • Destination: Clearwater Beach, Florida
  • Vehicle: one sedan, two guys
  • Original Hooters Girl: a woman named Diane, recruited on arrival
  • Cause of the restaurant's existence: an accident
  • Genre: part buddy comedy, part biopic
  • End result: a national chain where you can order a wing at 11 p.m.

The thing about an origin story that is also a movie is that the movie has to decide what the accident was for. The two guys did not set out to build a chain. They set out to get to the beach, and the chain is what they found when they got there, the way you find a beach when you get to the end of a road. The movie will have to show the road. The movie will have to show the car. The movie will have to show the moment two guys with no idea what they were getting into decided, in a parking lot, that the crazy idea was worth betting everything on.

At press time, the film was set to begin production later this year, the two guys were, by all accounts, still in Iowa, and the wing menu, which is the thing the whole thing was “accidentally” building, was, as it has been for forty-odd years, the thing nobody in the capital was allowed to take seriously except the people who order it at eleven p.m., and no one asks them why.