I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell - June 6, 2008

Not a title I would have picked, but whatever. Here is the Variety article announcing who the financiers are.

I already posted about this and then pulled the post to give the announcement to the trades, so here is what I posted a few weeks ago about Darko:

Nils and I just got back from the signing, and it's official: We have a movie. The contracts are signed, the six million dollars is in the account, and we are a go. For better or for worse, we are at the point of no return and I Hope They Serve Beer is going to be a movie.

Since this blog began, I haven't said anything about financing. I did talk about why I wanted creative freedom and why that meant that I had to independently finance the movie, but not about where the money is coming from, who the money is coming from, how it's getting here, what the negotiations were like, why we're doing what we're doing, etc, etc. And believe me, NOTHING has dominated my thoughts and emotions more than that single issue for the last six months--the who what where and how of the money to finance the movie. I can't tell you how many times I have wanted to puke, cry, lay down and die, or just do anything to stop stressing over this issue.

Thank god that is all over. I won't go into all the details of the financing process and what the last six months have been like in that regard, because it would take at least 10,000 words to even begin to explain it. Film finance is so ridiculously complicated and intricate and difficult to understand--I come from a law and economics background and my head is still spinning over this deal and what it took to get here. But whatever. We're here, and we have a movie. Here's the good part: Guess who is funding the entire movie, AND coming on board to help us produce it?

Darko Entertainment...who are Richard Kelly and Sean McKittrick...who are the guys that wrote, directed and produced Donnie Darko. Yes, THAT Donnie Darko. [Their third partner is Ted Hamm, and though he wasn't on board when they originally did Donnie Darko, he's a very important part of the company now, because he writes the checks].

I know, I know: What the fuck? Tucker Max and Donnie Darko? Working together? Really?

Don't get me wrong, I like Donnie Darko a lot. It's a great movie and I can see why it's such a cult classic. But if you were to have asked me six months ago to pick a list of people I would have wanted to work with, those guys wouldn't have been at the top. Not as a comment against them at all, but more because I never would have imagined them wanting to work with me. Never in a million years would I imagine that the guys who made that movie would even like me, much less want to do A MOVIE with me.

And that's why you should never assume: I could not have been more wrong and I could not be more happy with our situation.

Let me be clear about this: We had 50+ legit movie financiers come at us and offer to fund this movie (this is disregarding all the "dumb money" private equity people we talked to). Pretty much every studio, every production company you have heard of in Hollywood, they all wanted to be part of this project. The numbers that were thrown at me were preposterous. But we skipped over the studios and some really big names to choose Darko.

We went with Darko over everyone else for many reasons, the main one being exactly what I wrote about here: They not only "got" the creative vision behind the movie, but they were basically the only company that, when I talked to them, I didn't feel I was dealing with financiers, I felt I was talking to actual artists.

They didn't ask what "bankable" stars I was talking to, they agreed that the movie would be better without a huge name. They didn't "suggest" ways to make it a four quadrant movie, they told me about how they had never quoted lines from a script to each other. They didn't whine about how hard it would be to find a distributor, they talked about all the ways they could help me make the movie even better. I felt like I was talking to guys who really cared about making the best movie possible, and who knew how to do exactly that.

And most importantly, they get the essential truth of art: Even if you really care about money, it can never be about the money. You have to focus on making the best fucking movie possible; nail that first, and the money will come in buckets.

We signed the contracts with Aaron Ray--who I can't begin to thank enough for putting this deal together (along with everyone else at The Collective)--and he gave me some sage words of advice. I am paraphrasing, and kinda drunk, so bear with me if I fuck this up:

"From this moment until you wrap principal photography, every second counts, and you can never get that time back. Use it. Your only goal is to make a great movie. Don't worry about distribution, don't worry about editing, don't worry about anything that comes after shooting. You worry about making the best fucking movie you can make. If you knew what was coming--the pain, the anger, the sleep deprivation, the stress, the chaos--you probably wouldn't do it. But you're young and ignorant, you're going to do it no matter what I tell you, and you'll make it through. Kill it on this movie, be who you are, and you'll be set. Just make sure you don't leave anything on the table, because EVERY SECOND COUNTS."

Done and done.

I have been preparing for this moment for years. All I have ever asked for is the chance to do it. This is it. This is what I have been waiting for. This is that hour. I am going to leave it all on the field.

Comment and discuss

Posted by Tucker Max at 12:43 AM