A Valley man is receiving national attention after a typo led to an invitation to a bachelor party, and his story now heading to Hollywood.
Inside the home of Will Novak, there are plenty of children's toys and board games to keep a family occupied, he describes himself as an indoor guy.
”I’m very pale, the sun is very bright,” he laughed.
When he got the now famous email for Angelo’s bachelor party back in January of 2019, which was meant for a Will Novak of New York, Will Novak of Arizona said, “I hit reply all and said, count me the f*** in."
The bachelor party, set in a Vermont ski town, wasn’t cheap for the father who had home renovations to pay for, a 10-month-old at the time, and a mortgage, so he started a crowdfunding account.
Co-workers for the former Mesa government employee started to share the account, elected officials did the same, then the media caught on… “I talked to the BBC, I talked to some newspaper in Spain where the guy barely spoke English,” he said.
Media hype snowballed into corporate coat-tailing with donations that ranged from Jack Link’s beef jerky, American Airlines, plenty of breweries, and even a rental car company.
“We go into the parking garage and there’s a Maserati Levante which is like an $85 – $90 thousand car with racing tires on it,” he explained.
Novak says the car had its challenges on the narrow, icy Vermont roads.
Novak cooperated with anyone who wanted to be part of Angelo’s bachelor party weekend leading to free lift tickets, a welcome from a Vermont Chamber of Commerce, and more free beer than any liver would ever want.
The typo turned into an epic weekend made for Hollywood to adapt for the big screen which was in the works until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
A recent TikTok video about the weekend garnered more than two million views in a day and ramped up those movie discussions again.
“We’ve got producers, we’ve got a writer kind of us putting the for sale sign up there like we’re ready to talk,” said Novak.
When asked who would play him, the 39-year-old replied anyone who is willing to. On the plane to Vermont, he did get confused for Olympic snowboarder Shawn White, partially because he was wearing an American flag ski apparel.
That typo changed his life.
He learned saying yes, can make life a little more fun.
“As corny as it sounds, I played a lot of Zelda and Dungeons and Dragons. When you get an opportunity to take your quest, you gotta take your quest,” he said.
He still stays in touch with his “bro-skis” from the northeast.
A couple of years after the bachelor party, Angelo’s wife lost her battle to cancer leaving behind a daughter.
Novak hopes to make this movie and use the money it makes to help send Angelo’s daughter to college.
