'Underdogs' Premieres at North Canton's Tinseltown

Didn't catch "Underdogs" when it premiered in April at the Cleveland Film Festival?

Not to worry, the independent film—which was shot in North Canton by director and Stark County native Doug Dearth—kicked off a multi-day run on Aug. 15 at Cinemark's Tinseltown, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. 

The film, set in the birthplace of football in rural Ohio, tells the fictional story of a Division IV high school playing football against the cross-town rival and perennial powerhouse.

Off the field, a local machinist and father of the quarterback is being sued by the city’s main employer over intellectual rights to a new space heater invention amid rumors of company outsourcing.

Dearth knows a thing or two about being an underdog.

A Canton native and Lake High School graduate, Dearth moved to Los Angeles in 1993 to pursue an acting career. In his first appearance in a movie, “Money for Nothing,” he starred alongside John Cusack, Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Gandolfini and Michael Rapaport.

He switched to working behind the camera and has since worked as a producer for “Grace is Gone” and “The Jack Bull."

On Thursday night, the local director strolled down Tinseltown's red carpet with lead actor Logan Huffman, who played football star Bobby Burkett in the movie.

After the opening weekend in North Canton, Dearth plans on holding screenings in Columbus and hopes to premiere the film in theaters across the country. 

“We definitely have a rollout plan that extends [next] to five or 10 markets … across the U.S. It’ll depend on our box-office numbers, but I have a feeling, with it being in Ohio, that we’ll have a pretty strong opening weekend," Dearth told the Beacon.

Want to reserve your "Underdogs" North Canton Cinemark Tinseltown tickets? Click here.