Jay Baruchel's Forthcoming Comedy, 'The Stunt Driver,' Does Not End Well

The first image for Jay Baruchel’s film The Stunt Driver was released today (above) — it’s currently being marketed for distribution. In addition to Baruchel, the film stars Ed Helms, Ben Foster, Laurence Leboeuf, and Dan Bakkedahl, and it comes from director Michael Dowse (Stuber).

It’s a comedy about 1970s stunt driver Ken Carter, who spent years attempting to jump a rocket-powered car over the St. Lawrence River, a mile-wide gap between Canada and the United States. I’d never heard of Ken Carter, and my curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to see how The Stunt Driver would likely end.

It does not end well for Ken Carter.

The stunt driver spent years pulling off smaller auto feats in the shadow of the much popular Evel Knievel, who had considerably more resources to pull off his feats of derring-do. Here’s Carter’s record-breaking 107-foot jump in 1974.

Carter was a consummate media personality, able to amass a lot of sponsors and press attention. However, he had a mission: He wanted to build a rocket-powered car to jump over the St. Lawrence River. The jump, however, was delayed multiple times for various reasons, but mainly because the engineering and funding never lined up for him. There were so many delays that the delays themself became a big part of the story (this was all captured in the 1981 documentary The Devil at Your Heels).

In 1979, Carter finally scheduled the jump. However, due to all the previous delays, Carter’s sponsor became skittish and lined up another driver to perform the leap if Carter did not follow through. Five seconds before take-off, Carter aborted the attempt due to mechanical failure. His sponsor thought that Carter just chickened out, so he pulled out his backup plan, Kenny Powers (no relation to Danny McBride’s Eastbound & Down character).

It did not go well for Powers.

Powers was badly hurt (he broke eight vertebrae), but he did survive. It was a crushing, heartbreaking blow for Ken Carter, who spent years preparing for the jump, only to see someone else attempt it first.

But at least Ken Carter didn’t perish trying to jump over the St. Lawrence River. That came four years later, when his vehicle failed to execute a jump over a small pond. The car landed on its roof. Carter was killed instantly.

And The Stunt Driver is a comedy? That said, I am thoroughly intrigued. Sign me up.