Tagline: They came from nothing to change everything.
In Venice, California in the mid ’70’s, the sport of surfing brought together a group of teenagers from a rough neighborhood. Riding the waves at the Pacific Ocean Park pier, a graveyard of a former amusement park, the boys from “Dogtown” joined the Zephyr skate team (or Z-boys).
Known for their aggressive style, awe-inspiring moves and hard street attitude, the Z-Boys spent mornings and afternoons skateboarding. Taking the death-defying moves of surfing and applying them to skateboarding, the Z-Boys became overnight sensations – local legends – and revolutionized the art of skateboarding, transforming youth culture forever.
The tough, gritty streets of “Dogtown” in Venice, California didn’t look like much to outsiders, but to a handful of teenage surfers (Stacy Peralta, Tony Alva and Jay Adams) in the 1970s they were the hard, winding, sloping inspiration for a revolutionary style of skateboarding.
Transferring the aggressive wave-riding moves to concrete from their death-defying surfing skills at the Pacific Ocean Park pier, the Z-Boys — mostly kids with rough home lives and rougher attitudes — became sensations, local legends. They were freestyle wizards on urethane wheels, turning empty pools into arenas of wild, beautiful athleticism, the genesis of today’s “extreme sports.”
Skating competitions didn’t know what to make of them, girls threw themselves at them, and suddenly marketers and promoters wanted to grab a piece of them and what was fast becoming a worldwide counterculture phenomenon. But would the friendships of this tightly knit group last as a teenage pastime turned into big business, and energetic personalities became out-of-control celebrities?
Production notes provided by Sony Tri-Star Pictures.
Lords of Dogtown
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk, John Robinson, Michael Angarano, Heath Ledger, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Renner, Shea Whigham
Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Screenplay: Catherine Hardwicke
Release Date: June 3rd, 2005
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for drug and alcohol content, sexuality, violence, language and reckless behavior – all involving teens.
Studio: Tri-Star Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $11,273,517 (84.1%)
Foreign: $2,138,440 (15.9%)
Total: $13,411,957 (Worldwide)