The Unbreakable Boy director Jon Gunn spoke to ComingSoon about the new inspirational drama, which tells the true story of an autistic boy with brittle bone disease. Based on the book of the same name by Scott LeRette with Susy Flory, it stars Zachary Levi, Meghann Fahy, and Jacob Laval. It arrives only in theaters on February 21, 2025.
“From Kingdom Story Company, the team behind Jesus Revolution and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and Lionsgate, the studio behind Wonder, comes The Unbreakable Boy. When his parents, Scott (Zachary Levi) and Teresa (Meghann Fahy), learn that Austin is both autistic and has brittle bone disease, they initially worry for their son’s future,” says the synopsis for Jon Gunn’s movie. “But with Scott’s growing faith and Austin’s incredible spirit, they become ‘unbreakable,’ finding joy, gratitude, and courage even in the most trying times — an extraordinary true story about a father and son learning together that every day can be the best day of your life!”
Tyler Treese: You co-wrote and executive produced American Underdog, which also started Zachary Levi. Being on that project, is that what made you think of him for the role of Scott LeRette in The Unbreakable Boy?
Jon Gunn: It’s funny, what happened was we shot Unbreakable Boy before we shot American Underdog. But it happened during COVID. So we were about ready to shoot American Underdog when COVID hit, and we had to delay. While we were delayed, I wrote The Unbreakable Boy just because I was sitting in my home with nothing to do, and we sent it to Zach to say, “Hey, do you wanna make this movie too?” And he loved it, so we thought, “Why don’t we just get [to it]?”
We went right into production as one of the first production shooting during COVID, and so we shot two movies back to back in Oklahoma, Unbreakable Boy first, and then while we were shooting Unbreakable Boy, Zach was training to play Kurt Warner. He was working on his football skills.
I wanted to ask about the use of the Imaginary friend. Was that something in the book, or was that a way to kind of get his own thoughts onto the screen in a pretty fun way without him being the narrator?
Yeah, it’s a good question. It was very interesting because when I read the book, I really wanted to take the perspective of Austin, as the autistic child, to narrate the story. But there was a mention in the book where Scott, he’s such an interesting guy, and he commented on how he would talk to himself a lot, and his mother made fun of him, I think, and said that he must have an imaginary friend named Joe.
It was kind of just a little throwaway line somewhere, but I thought to myself, “I wonder, could we do this? Could we narrate the movie from the autistic child and then also give the father an imaginary friend <laugh>?” And I think it worked out really great, and it also brought me the gift of meeting Drew Powell – the actor who plays Joe – who I just love so much.
You mentioned Scott, who wrote the book with Susy Flory. How did you come across this book?
It was Peter Facinelli who brought it to us, actually. I was developing some projects with Lionsgate. Peter had come to us and said, “I have this book that I just think is really, really special.”
I read it, and it timed out perfectly that when COVID hit, I was looking for something else to write. I was like, “Man, this is a really charming family story that I think we could do at the right scale during COVID.” When we could only have, you know, a few people on set at a time.
So it kind of just came to us, and Peter has just been such a passionate advocate for the story from the very beginning and such a great friend. He’s in the film as well, of course, as Pastor Rick.
We see their pictures at the end. How involved were the real Scott and Teresa with the film?
Oh, Scott and Teresa and their whole family have been incredibly involved since the very beginning. To this day, we text together all the time. So they were on set visiting, they were great consultants for me. They’ve been such huge advocates for us the whole way. I think it’s crazy for them to see their story, you know, put on screen in this way. They’re really, really proud of it and so excited.
Thanks to Jon Gunn for taking the time to talk about The Unbreakable Boy.
