One of the producers behind Robert De Niro’s latest film The War with Grandpa is a 15-year-old boy who pitched the project to the veteran actor after reading the classic young-adult novel of the same name.
Tre Peart was in the third grade when he was assigned to read “The War With Grandpa” by Robert Kimmel Smith, first published in 1984. The story centers on a kid named Peter whose grandfather moves in with his family and takes over his grandson’s room. Peter responds by waging a war of pranks to get his room back, PEOPLE reports.
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Peart says he loved the book so much that he asked his parents to see the movie version and learned there wasn’t one.
“I realized my parents made movies,” Tre told The Times of Israel. “They were in the movie business. I asked, ‘Mom, can you make this into a movie?’”
The rest, as they say, is history.
The resulting feature film is executive produced by Marvin, Rosa and Tre Peart.
De Niro stars alongside a supporting cast that includes Uma Thurman, Christopher Walken, Jane Seymour and Cheech Marin. The comedy was number one at the box office on its opening weekend, bringing in $3.6 million.
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As in the book, in the movie, grandpa comes to live with his grandson’s family after the death of his wife.
“Grandpa was mourning his [wife], mourning his change of life, he did not want to let go of the fact he’s aging,” Rosa Peart said. “It’s the transition of life, and [De Niro] really captured that.”
Marvin Peart also recalled, “There were pranks [in the book] about Monopoly pieces,” he said. “Board games don’t happen anymore. We added a lot of technology to the movie … Grandpa has trouble keeping up with technology he doesn’t understand, like an iPhone or iPad, and drones.”
A sequel to the book is reportedly in the works titled “The War with Grandma.”
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