Let's Talk About... The Importance of Regional Film Festivals. PLUS: My Film DARUMA is Coming to Theaters & VOD this fall. I'll be documenting the marketing/PR campaign in real time so follow along.
This week: how to maximize regional film festivals; PLUS my film DARUMA is coming to theaters & VOD this fall: an announcement in this week's trades. And those fake reviews of Megalopolis.
This week I’m thrilled to share the news that the film I wrote and produced and have been working on for almost two decades now (yup, that’s how long it took) is having a day and date release and screening in five theaters across country for a week in November. November 15 - 21, 2024 to be exact.
Click here to read the announcement in Deadline.
I strongly encourage you to follow along with what I’m doing with the film, as I’m basically making a case study on how an indie filmmaker will be rolling out not only their own theatrical and VOD release, but I’ll be doing it in real time too.
Is this is mistake to document my efforts like this? Maybe. But I’m confident that we’ll not only have some success with the launch of the film, but we’ll have some incredible lessons learned at the same time. That’s only going to make me a better filmmaker and even sharper at P&A.
If you want to learn even more about the film and what we’re doing, please follow the film on social media and sign up for updates here.
The film is also on Letterboxd.
I’d love it if you could leave a review or comment about the film on any of these platforms. The film carries significant importance in the disability community, in that CNN said it was the first film to star two disabled leads in a narrative NOT about overcoming a disability.
So this kind of representation in film is important not only for its representation, but people will be watching for the success of this film. If it does well, then hopefully people will want to finance and create more films like it that feature authentic representation.
This is also as good a time as any to sign up for the monthly subscription to my Substack as I’ll be doing the majority of these posts that go into my strategy for my paid subscribers. It’s $5 a month or $50 a year, which is a heck of a deal to get access to this kind of insight in real time and learn from our mistakes and successes.
Upgrade your subscription here:
Fake Reviews/Quotes of Megalopolis Trailer
I wanted to briefly touch on the news that came out last week regarding Lionsgate’s trailer with the fake quotes plastered on the Megalopolis trailer. The Deadline article is here.
This story is weird to me, because the quotes were generated by AI and placed in the trailer and then passed off as genuine. As you know from my paid subscriber post last week, I warned against making up fake headlines (before this story even broke) because you will get caught and you will look very silly indeed.
But the thing that’s weird to me about this whole scenario is why they didn’t go along with the idea that it was a marketing stunt. In the same way that the Blair Witch team seeded the idea that it was based on a true story to generate buzz and chatter, the team behind this trailer incident could have leaned into it and said that it was a marketing ploy.
And guess what: it would have been a good one. It got people talking a lot and the trailer made headlines as tongues wagged about it.
But Lionsgate didn’t lean into the idea that it was a marketing stunt. Instead they went with the idea that no one intended to fabricate the quotes and that it was all a huge misunderstanding. They pulled the trailer and issued an apology and fired the consultant they were working with.
This is why this whole situation is so weird to me: it seems like it was a marketing stunt, being passed off as a PR campaign gone awry. Why not just own up to the idea that it was a marketing stunt? Then they would have saved face AND not have had the bad press and not had to pull their assets.
What really transpired and how this all went down is obviously above my pay grade but if you want to watch the trailer, here’s a link. To be fair, I read that they got these quotes from AI and that the AI made up bad quotes from legendary film critics (who have passed). So they should have double-checked as well as made up the name of fake critics for these fake quotes. The whole thing is a debacle, and I feel badly for those involved.
By the way, I should note here that Coppola self-financed his film so if you’re pouring your own money into your film, don’t beat yourself up; even a great one like Coppola still has to be his own best advocate in Hollywood.
Albeit, he’s probably got more resources at his disposal than the combined net worth of everyone reading this post, but that’s another story. It reminds me of the joke, how do you make a small fortune in wine? Start with a large fortune.
I wish their team well and hope the film does well and I hope that everyone involved in this gaff rebounds.
And now let’s get into this week’s subscriber post, the importance of regional film festivals.
This week’s subscriber post is going to dive into the importance of regional film festivals not only as a tool for discovery, but as a means for filmmakers to grow their brands and set their film’s theatrical releases up for success as well as impact their VOD release. I’ll explain how it’s tying into mine coming this November. Let’s go!
Want to work with me? Send me a DM!