Kansas City is getting a red carpet of its own next Tuesday, as Overland Park native Rob Riggle brings his new horror-thriller “Don't Move” home for a premiere at the historic Midland Theatre downtown. The screening, set for September 8, comes just days before the film opens in theaters nationwide.
According to The Kansas City Star, the red carpet at the Midland Theatre, located at 1228 Main Street, kicks off at 6 p.m. local time, with the film screening at 7 p.m. and a Q&A to follow. Riggle is expected to attend alongside co-stars Lyndsy Fonseca and Russell “Russ” Vitale, director Maclain Nelson, and novel co-author James “Murr” Murray. Tickets run $56.52, per the outlet's reporting.
“Don't Move” follows a church group on its annual camping trip that ends up in an unfamiliar stretch of the Ozarks, according to the same report. Fonseca plays Megan Forrester, a woman who lost her husband and son in a fire and leads the surviving group members to safety once things go wrong. The film is not the 2024 Netflix movie of the same name, the outlet notes, but a separate adaptation of the 2020 novel written by Murray and Darren Wearmouth.
From Pandemic Project to the Big Screen
Murray developed the novel while self-isolating at home in New Jersey during the early COVID-19 lockdowns, and Blackstone Publishing released it in October 2020, according to Wikipedia. Nelson, who has previously directed independent features including “Vamp U” and “The Magic of Lemon Drops,” co-wrote the film's screenplay with Murray and Wearmouth, per UpcomingHorrorMovies. While the original novel was set in a West Virginian forest, the film adaptation shifts the setting to the Ozarks, tightening its regional ties to Midwestern audiences, the outlet reports.
Principal photography wrapped in Kansas City on October 18, 2024, with Impractical Studios and Redline Entertainment branding, Wikipedia notes. The film also stars Joseph Lee Anderson and Tom Cavanagh, with guest appearances from T-Pain and Brian “Q” Quinn, and it opens nationwide September 11 following earlier premieres in New York on September 7 and Los Angeles on September 9, according to the Star's reporting.
A Homecoming for the Marine-Turned-Comedian
Riggle, who was raised in Overland Park and attended the University of Kansas, has built a decades-long entertainment career that includes stints as a correspondent on “The Daily Show” and roles in “The Hangover,” “Step Brothers,” and “21 Jump Street.” But his Kansas City ties run deeper than Hollywood credits. He served 23 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve, including deployments to Kosovo, Albania, Liberia, and Afghanistan, before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2013 while building his comedy career simultaneously, according to VA News.
Riggle also co-hosts the annual Big Slick charity weekend, which he co-founded in 2010 alongside fellow Kansas City-area natives Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis. The event raised $4.2 million in 2026 and has collected more than $34 million total for pediatric cancer research at Children's Mercy Hospital, per TODAY. Hoodline has previously covered Koechner's Big Slick ties, noting that David Koechner also co-hosts the fundraiser alongside Riggle, Rudd, Sudeikis, and Eric Stonestreet.
Kansas City's Growing Film Footprint
The “Don't Move” premiere lands amid a broader resurgence in Missouri film production. Film and television projects qualifying for Missouri incentives spent $40.7 million in the state in 2025 across 54 projects, creating jobs for 2,154 Missouri residents, according to the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Under the state's Show MO Act, eligible productions can receive a 20% base tax credit that scales up to 42% through stackable uplifts for local hiring and regional filming, capped statewide at $16 million annually, per the Missouri Film Office.
Other recent productions have taken advantage of the Kansas City area's growing profile, including “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story,” which filmed in Independence and elsewhere in the region in 2024 and held its own red-carpet event in front of Crown Center Square, the Star reports. The film “Disclosure Day” was largely set in and filmed scenes around Kansas City as well, though it never got a local premiere of its own, unlike “Don't Move's” hometown send-off at the Midland.
Inside the Historic Midland Theatre
The venue hosting Tuesday's red carpet has its own storied history. The Midland Theatre opened in downtown Kansas City in October 1927 as Loew's Midland Theatre and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, according to Kansas City Magazine. The theater seats approximately 3,200 people and features more than 500,000 feet of gold leaf and five Czechoslovakian hand-cut crystal chandeliers, making it a fitting cinematic backdrop for a hometown premiere.
