The Grand (film)

The Grand
Promotional poster
Directed by	Zak Penn
Written by	Zak Penn Matt Bierman
Produced by	Jeff Bowler
Starring	Woody Harrelson Cheryl Hines David Cross Chris Parnell Richard Kind Dennis Farina Werner Herzog Ray Romano
Cinematography	Anthony Hardwick
Edited by	Abby Schwarzwalder
Music by	Stephen Endelman
Distributed by	Anchor Bay Entertainment
Release dates	June 7, 2007 (2007-06-07) (CineVegas International Film Festival) March 21, 2008 (2008-03-21) (United States)
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3 million[1]
Box office	$114,669 (USA)

The Grand is a 2007 improv comedy film directed by Zak Penn. The film has an ensemble cast including Ray Romano, Woody Harrelson, Chris Parnell, Werner Herzog, Jason Alexander, Dennis Farina, David Cross, Gabe Kaplan, Michael Karnow and Cheryl Hines along with several real Las Vegas poker stars.^[1]

According to Penn, the film is styled after those of Christopher Guest,^[2] in which each actor is given direction concerning their character and the actors are left to improvise each individual scene. The plot of The Grand was somewhat more open-ended than Guest's work, however. The focus of the film is a poker tournament played at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas between the characters in which real poker matches were played by the actors as the scenes were filmed. The film's script did not specify the winner of the tournament, and the ending of the film was determined by the actual game played on set.^[2]

The film debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival, and was distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment.^[1] The film opened in limited release in the United States on March 21, 2008, and opened in wider release on April 4, 2008.