The bulls are back in town.
Johnny Knoxville has broken bones, suffered 16 concussions, a brain hemorrhage, countless knock-outs, and a slew of bruises all for Jackass. And he’s still coming back for more.
Knoxville has evolved on our screens from renegade kid to wise elder, all while getting his balls busted. It seems he can’t get enough of the pain, confirming that a fifth film in the Jackass franchise will be released in June later this year.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Knoxville admitted “it never was a good idea! It was just fun” to make the new Jackass film. Following a surprisingly tender (but still stunt-packed) send-off in the previous film Jackass: Forever, many thought the series over.
But the son of a Southern-Baptist Sunday School teacher and a prankster father still wants to get thrown around by bulls, be torn limb from limb and pop his eye back into its socket.
Over 25 years ago, Knoxville started torturing himself in front of a camcorder. With aspirations of acting, he learnt he had a high pain tolerance, and so, started filming extraordinary stunts for Big Brother, a skateboarding magazine.
At a time when compilations of skateboarding injuries were distributed amongst friends on VHS, Knoxville’s popularity was assured in the sunny skateparks of late 90’s L.A.
On the set of a music video directed by Spike Jonce, Knoxville met Jeff Tremaine. The trio would go on to produce Jackass together with Tremaine directing, together creating the death-defying, converse-wearing series we all know and love, in which every hole and appendage is up for grabs.
The recent interview reveals Knoxville’s incessant hunger for stunts; “I’m constantly writing ideas and emailing them to myself,” reuniting with original Jackass cast members Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Wee Man, Preston Lacy, Dave England, and Danger Ehren to bring them to life.
New members of the gang will also feature, including Sean “Poopies” McInerney, Zach Holmes, Jasper Dolphin, Eric Manaka, and Rachel Wolfson.
At the mention of Dave England, Knoxville teases a stunt they’ve been attempting to do for 15 years involving his testicles (or rather, just the 1) may finally come to fruition in the new film.
But he also admits, “it just seems like there’s more penis in each film. Though the older you get, the less people want to see your penis.”
I guess we’ll have to wait and see just how much there is in Jackass 5.
