Chopper Read gets dying wish to star as himself in movie

Mark “Chopper” Read has been granted his dying wish with a film where he plays himself as a gun-toting gangster resurrected.

Mark “Chopper” Read will fire one more shot from the grave.

Named for chopping off the toes of his rivals, Chopper’s dying wish was to play himself in a movie. It was a role he knew all too well as a gun-toting gangster.

Ten years on and Melbourne-based underworld footy feature, Pinball, is undergoing a resurrection.

Never seen pictures show Chopper reuniting with a .38 special snub nose revolver and .357 Smith & Wesson.

Mark “Chopper Read” plays himself in the movie Pinball. Picture: Supplied/Matt Holcomb

Getting a feature film off the ground is a difficult beast.

Brothers Matt and Trevor Holcomb hit hurdles with funding on Pinball not long after filming scenes with Chopper and Underbelly actor Kevin Kieran-Molloy.

The movie is about blue-collar crime in the suburbs of Melbourne. The story revolves around Clint Thorp, played by Keiran-Molloy, a former Australian rules football player who turns bad guy and the violent events in his world.

The film is centred in and around Collingwood and the Collingwood Football Club with Chopper in the role of the gnarled-eared crim.

The never before seen stills from the movie. Picture: Supplied/Matt Holcomb

Chopper looks at ease holding a handgun, giving Pinball a serious shot of reality on crime matriarch Kath Pettingill’s old stamping ground.

Filming at the former Seddon digs of the gangland mum made famous by Jacki Weaver in her Oscar-nominated performance in Animal Kingdom was sheer coincidence.

“Pinball is actually set in and around Collingwood, but we are using Trevor’s backyard for filming the gun scene with Chopper and it just happens to be Pettingill’s old house,” filmmaker Matt Holcomb told Page 13.

A faded car skid mark on the living room carpet suggests a bloody skirmish from a darker time.

The movie is about blue-collar crime in Melbourne. Picture: Supplied/Matt Holcomb

Holcomb said Chopper, who grew up obsessed with old Westerns, was a true professional on set.

“What we have is unseen footage of Mark the actor,” Holcomb said.

“I was tough on him as a director and he rose to the occasion and he responded like an actor, like he was doing it all his life, it was extraordinary.

“He loved it. I think it was something he had wanted to do for a really long time. He grew up watching Westerns and wanted to be an outlaw … or a sheriff.

“That was a big part of who he was. He loved history, the old West, so when I told him this was a crime western he was thrilled. His eyes lit up. His screen presence is through the roof.”

Pinball came close to being made when Al Clark, producer of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, optioned the script, convinced he had found Australia’s next big crime drama.

Chopper was described as a “true professional” on set. Picture: Supplied/Matt Holcomb

But it was a case of close but no hit. In early 2016, Holcomb parted ways with Clark saying he tried to put the heartbreak behind him.

But lockdown during COVID gave him time to rethink the film, taking scenes filmed with an ailing Chopper and presenting them as flashbacks in new version of the story.

“When Mark was diagnosed with cancer, we decided to film most of his scenes as no one knew how much time he had.

“Getting feature films made in Australia within the system is not for the faint of heart, especially debut features.

Mark 'Chopper' Read on the set of Pinball, a movie in which Chopper played himself Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“I’ve experienced it first hand and even lost a marriage over it. But for us to be able to utilise all this incredible, culturally significant footage, making the film this way is the only option.”

The AACTA award-winning filmmaker is securing crowd funding to finish the film.

Collingwood is turned into Carringbush, taking poetic license from Frank Hardy’s seminal 1950s crime novel Power and Glory, not so subtly based around the life of politician John Wren.

“Hardy had to rename everything, so Gold Street in Collingwood became Silver St and Collingwood became Carringbush. They named the Carringbush hotel in honour of it.”

With filming back shooting in September, Holcomb says the movie will release at film festivals next year, with a general release in 2023, marking ten year’s since Chopper’s death.

Chopper rises from the dead, unlike some of his victims.