TORONTO — Taking on the blockbuster The Hunger Games: Catching Fire at the box office this weekend is the comedy Delivery Man.
It’s a remake of a Canadian film (Starbuck) directed by a Canadian (Montreal’s Ken Scott) and starring both an American actor (Vince Vaughn) who’s married to a Canadian (Calgary native Kyla Weber) and a Canadian star (Vancouver’s Cobie Smulders).
Vaughn plays David, who learns that his donations to a sperm bank resulted in the birth of 533 children. When a large group of them file a class action suit against the sperm bank seeking his identity, David must decide whether or not to come forward.
Smulders plays his girlfriend, who is wondering if David will be a good father to their own child.
Delivery Man is only the latest sperm flick to hit the big screen.
Here’s a look at five others:
Made in America (1993)
Whoopi Goldberg stars in this comedy as Sarah, whose daughter Zora (Nia Long) was conceived by artificial insemination. Sarah, who had specifically requested the donor be a black man, finds out the sample came from an obnoxious white man named Hal (Ted Danson).
Twins (2008)
Directed by Canada’s Ivan Reitman, this comedy is about unlikely fraternal twins (Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger) who are the results of a secret experiment to produce the perfect child using genetic material from six different sperm donors.
The Switch (2010)
Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman star in this comedy-drama based on the 1996 short story Baster by Jeffrey Eugenides. It’s about a 40-year-old woman (Aniston) who turns to artificial insemination to have a baby — but finds out seven years after her son’s birth that her best friend (Bateman) had swapped her donor’s sperm with his own. The movie’s tagline was: “The Most Unexpected Comedy Ever Conceived.”
The Back-up Plan (2010)
Having given up on finding the man of her dreams, Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) opts to get pregnant via artificial insemination. Things get complicated when she meets handsome Stan (Alex O’Loughlin) and must decide whether to tell him she’s pregnant. The movie follows the couple’s misadventures as Stan struggles with the thought of becoming a dad and Zoe wonders if he’s the man she wants in her new life.
The Kids Are Alright (2010)
Nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, this comedy-drama stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple who each gave birth using the same sperm donor. The teenagers (Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska) track down the donor (Mark Ruffalo), who becomes so close to the family that he begins an affair with Moore’s character.
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