Michael Madsen, the iconic Hollywood star who died July 3, 2025, ending a career filled with memorable action and crime thrillers like ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Kill Bill,’ may have saved his most surprising and revealing role for one of his last. In ‘Mr. Wonderful,’ an independent feature film shot last year, he played Brian Fenton, a college professor desperately trying to prop up a failing career, steer a wayward son away from drugs and personal ruin, and come to grips with his own mysterious father’s descent into dementia.
Watching Madsen on set in ‘Mr. Wonderful,’ writer/producer Daniel Blake Smith suggested that Madsen was tapping into his own troubled life—laced with alcoholism, chaotic marriages, and the loss of his 26-year-old son to suicide in 2022. “His own sister, actress Virginia Madsen,” Smith observed, “called him ’thunder and velvet… mischief wrapped in tenderness.’ Well, nowhere was that emotional complexity more vividly on display than the vulnerable and deeply emotional work he put into the lead role in our film,” Smith said.
Director Mark David worked with Madsen as DP on several films before directing him in ‘Mr. Wonderful.’ “He was a really sweet guy,” David said, “warm, funny, and such a powerhouse on screen. I believed every word he said on camera. I wanted to make more movies with him.”
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Executive Producer / Sales Consultant Scott Stoltz of SCS Studio Filmz acquired worldwide sales rights for ‘Mr. Wonderful’ in part because; he said he was taken by Madsen’s “stellar performance that pulls at your heart strings from beginning to the end.”
The film, now out to film festivals throughout the country, has just released its official trailer:
Smith is repped by Malissa Young Management and Tara Sattler, Weintraub Tobin Chediak Coleman Grodin. David is repped by Ralph Berge at IAG and Charles Lago at DTLA Ent Group and Scott Stoltz by Chad Russo at Ramo Law and Joseph Lanius Law & Associates.
