Dewey Cox Returns: John C. Reilly Revives a Cult Comedy Icon

Dewey Cox might be dusting off the rhinestones. John C. Reilly says he is getting ready to bring the legendary wrong-note hero of faux-rock back on the road, almost 20 years after 'Walk Hard' first face-planted at the box office and then became everybody’s favorite cult music biopic parody.

What Reilly actually said

Reilly dropped the news on Steve-O's Wild Ride! podcast (first flagged by Live for Live Music). The plan is twofold for 2027, when 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' hits its 20th anniversary: he and musician Jack White want to rerelease the movie’s soundtrack on vinyl, and Reilly wants to revive Dewey Cox live, with a full tour.

'As many dates and as big of places as we can do.'

• 2027: a 20th-anniversary vinyl reissue of the 'Walk Hard' soundtrack, with Jack White involved
• Reilly aims to get The Hard Walkers back together and tour under the Dewey Cox banner
• Scale-wise, he is shooting for big rooms and lots of dates
• Who else is in? That part is still up in the air

Who is actually in the band?

This is the part they have not nailed down yet. The movie’s fictional lineup included Tim Meadows, Chris Parnell, and Matt Besser, but Reilly did not confirm any of them for the comeback. The history here is a little inside baseball: back in 2007, to promote the film, Reilly actually toured as Dewey Cox with guitarist Mike Viola (who wrote several of the songs), and some of the film’s other cast members popped up at certain stops. So the live version of Dewey is not a brand-new swing; it is a throwback to how they launched the movie the first time.

Quick refresher on 'Walk Hard'

Released in 2007, 'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' put Reilly in the skin of Dewey, a deliberately ridiculous riff on decades of earnest musician biopics. The movie takes big, obvious swings at films like 'Ray' and 'Walk the Line' and basically any rise-fall-redemption arc you can name. It did not make much money, but it slowly turned into a cult favorite, thanks to the songs and the way it skewers every biopic trope with a straight face.

The cast was stacked: Kristen Wiig, Raymond J. Barry, Margo Martindale, Jenna Fischer, Angela Correa, Tim Meadows, Chris Parnell, Matt Besser, Jonah Hill, David 'Honeyboy' Edwards, David Krumholtz, Craig Robinson, and more. And yes, the soundtrack is half the joke and half the reason it will absolutely sell on vinyl again.

Bottom line: if all goes to plan, 2027 will bring a fresh pressing of the soundtrack and a Dewey Cox tour big enough to test how far a cult classic can stretch. Honestly? I would not bet against it.