Then my friend shook his head and said six words that I think crystallize the problem with today’s movie business: “A hundred million is a double.”
I wasn’t quite sure what I was hearing. “How can a hundred million be a double? With that huge profit, isn’t it a home run?”
Then my friend explained the birds and the bees. “Look, we like the same kinds of movies. I would love to make smaller, more interesting films, but I have fifty people working in my marketing department. Whether they’re working on a $100 million comedy with massive stars or a $20 million comedy with up-and-comers, they’re working the same hours. As a company, we need to maximize the financial return on their effort. Your $20 million film that maxes out at $100 million is a double. I need grand slams. I need films that can gross $250 to $400 million. I need grosses that can move the stock price.”
This need for maximum profit has made the $12 to $50 million movie a risk not worth taking. And $12 to $50 million is the exact budget level where most of the great movies are made. I’m talking about films like Kramer vs. Kramer, Hoosiers, Breaking Away, The Godfather, Being John Malkovich, Dazed and Confused, Heathers, Flirting with Disaster, Clueless, On Golden Pond, This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally. I’m not talking about art house. I’m talking about The Player, 48 Hrs., Beverly Hills Cop, The Hangover, Beerfest, The Outsiders, Borat, Bridesmaids, Knocked Up, Old School, Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Midnight Run, Slap Shot . . . I could keep going. The idea factory that was the American film business from the seventies through the late nineties can’t function if the expectations on each film are that it make $250 to $400 million or be judged a financial failure. Corporations bought film companies, in part, because they were “fun investments.” But when corporations took control of the studios, they took all the fun out of them by forcing film presidents to hit incredibly high profit targets. And if you’re going to take the risk and the fun out of the movie business, you might as well put your money into something safer, like doorstops.
Now, to be clear, I’m not deluded. Studios need to make blockbuster movies to survive. Marvel is making great movies that are fun, funny, and technologically groundbreaking, and they’re making a financial killing. (I’ve interviewed for a couple of them, and I’m still interested.) There are a lot of great movies with unaided awareness that I love, including Deadpool, Star Trek, Iron Man, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Man, Pirates is a great movie, and it rivals Raiders of the Lost Ark in quality. But in the end, Raiders wins because it’s based on an original idea, not a Disney ride.
The point is this: Blockbusters are great, but they can’t be the whole film business. The old deal was that studios made money on blockbusters so that they could afford to take chances on high-minded dramas and envelope-pushing comedies. But the balance has shifted so brutally in favor of the blockbuster that the smaller films have mostly been abandoned. And I know what people in the business will say: Hey, the audiences are speaking with their pocketbooks. They want splash, spectacle, and special effects if they’re going to go to the theater. They don’t want to go to midrange films anymore. Those films are for Fox Searchlight, Netflix, and Amazon to make. The audience has spoken and they just want superhero movies.
Bullshit. We’ve conditioned the audience to be that way, and we can condition them back. If we make and promote these midlevel movies, people will go again. We need to decouple a film’s box office gross from its perceived quality. We need to stop printing our grosses in the newspaper. How much money a movie makes is our business, not the audience’s, and they shouldn’t be judging a movie based on that. Humans love stories, both big and small. And there is no reason why we should give up the notion that audiences still want to see great, original, human films on big screens.
Today, if a movie makes a small profit, it’s a failure. That’s not us. That’s not who we are. Obviously, we all want to make a profit, but everything doesn’t need to be a grand slam.
So, my dear corporations, make your grand-slam profits on some movies, and also on computers, phones, cars, and insurance. But get back to making the $20 to $50 million theatrical film that makes enough of a profit. Do that, and there will be a creative rebirth that will propel a whole new generation of maverick filmmakers.
But I’m not naïve. Asking a drunk to give up booze is a waste of time. So maybe the bartender can help:
Dear Audience,
Aren’t you tired of the same old slate of movies we’re releasing? Stop rewarding us for only making classic film remakes and movies about toys, video games, and superheroes. Start rewarding us for making original, medium-size movies again. Only you can save the movie business.
Which brings me, finally, to Super Troopers 2. A little background: Super Troopers 2 has unaided awareness thanks to the huge fan base devoted to the original film. Super Troopers 2 feels like a good financial bet since the original film, which was made for $1.2 million, made Fox about $80 to $90 million in profit. So it’s a no-brainer for Fox to fund the sequel, right? Not exactly.
I wasn’t privy to their internal conversations, but maybe they went something like this:
“Hmm, Super Troopers 2? Do you think we could get Broken Lizard to transform the Super Troopers into superheroes? I’m thinking cops with capes. Hell, I’d love to see Farva in tights. We’d definitely make that movie.”
Okay, to be totally honest, there were lengthy discussions. For a while, Fox was going to pay for the whole movie, then half, then none. Searchlight agreed to release the sequel, but they asked us to find the money, for both production and advertising. And, so we’re clear, I’m not mad or bitter, because it’s just business. Searchlight is the best small-film distributor in showbiz and they don’t give up their distribution slots to just anyone. I love Searchlight because they took a chance on us and made Super Troopers a hit. They’re exactly the kind of film company that needs our support because they are holding the line on the quality-film business. And to be clear, they believe in Super Troopers 2. They own the rights to the sequel and could have just buried the film if they wanted to. Giving us a distribution slot and letting us find the money was a huge give, considering the current state of film economics. They didn’t pass on funding the film because they thought it wouldn’t make a profit. They passed on funding the film because they were worried that it wouldn’t make enough of a profit.
Knowing that we had to raise a lot of money, we went to our fans first. We partnered with the crowdfunding site Indiegogo and crowdfunding guru Ivan Askwith to craft just the right message. Then we grew some mustaches, pulled our uniforms out of storage, and shot some funny videos.
Now it was time to roll the dice on what was looking like an enormously risky bet. Because if our fans didn’t respond to the campaign, it would be a message to both Hollywood and the investor community that no one actually wanted to see the sequel. As the time ticked down to launch our crowdfunding campaign, we were all noticeably worried. But when we finally pressed the button to launch, our fans responded, and big-time. The money raise got off to a fast start, and then took off like a rocket. Within twenty-four hours, our fans had “donated” more than $2 million. The remaining twenty-nine days felt like a political campaign. Every day, we launched new videos. Some were pretaped sketches and some were direct appeals to the audience. We gave away cool perks, like limited-edition T-shirts, posters, movie tickets to the sequel, and the right to play beer pong against us in a Beerfest tournament. There were also some crazier perks, like for $25 million, one of us would donate sperm to father your child. (No one bought that.) Every day was fun, and it was a thrill to sit by the computer and watch the love roll in. By the end of the month, we had raised more than $4.5 million from more than fifty thousand people, breaking the Indiegogo record for feature film campaigns.
As much as the money from the campaign was incredibly important to our production, the fan response was equally so, because it s
ent a message that there was an audience out there waiting for this movie. So when we went to the independent-film investor community to raise the substantial rest of the budget, the fact that fifty thousand people had already backed the film made that process just a little bit easier. The success of the campaign also gave Searchlight confidence that when it comes time to promote the film, there will be a rabid and ready audience.
Now, before you start screaming that Super Troopers 2 isn’t original (it’s a sequel), I’ll grant you that. But know this. Super Troopers 2 is an independently financed film, so we had enormous creative control. We came up with a hilarious story, and we wrote thirty-three drafts of the script.
We just got back from Boston, where we finally finished the shoot. Man, it went well. We got great performances from Rob Lowe, Brian Cox, Will Sasso, Tyler Labine, Hayes MacArthur, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and a couple of secret others. I told all the Lizards that I would only make the movie if we all weighed the same as we did for the original. And we all did. So, folks, you may be able to say we’re older, but you won’t be able to say we’re fatter and older. Ha! We’re about to start the editing process, and I’m cautiously optimistic. Very optimistic. If we can match the tone and the jokes of the first film, I feel confident that we’re going to make a movie that will merit being mentioned in the same breath as the original. Let’s hope we’re right.
One last thing: Please, go to the theaters and watch this movie. Super Troopers 2 needs to do well, theatrically. Watching it on home video or Netflix is great, but studios don’t respect it the same way. So, all you stoners, get in your car, drive to the theater, smoke your joint (safely) in the parking lot, buy a ticket, and go watch the film. If enough of you do that, I promise the wait for Super Troopers 3: Civil War, will be much, much shorter. (And yes, we’ll fucking make Potfest too.)
Goofing off in the kitchen.
Arsenic and Old Lace.
Poster for NYC live show. I like weird.
Me in 1991. I open my mouth a lot in pictures.
Broken Lizard in 1991. The guy in the Yankees hat is Rob Holzer, our piano guy. The woman is Lauren Bright.
Steve and me in Hollywood, 2001. Late night.
The Tinfoil Monkey Agenda.
Groomsmen at Heffernan’s wedding, 2001.
“They think I’m Mexican.” The diner scene in Super Troopers.
I’ll never chug syrup again.
“The lice hate the sugar.”
Super Troopers premiere, 2001.
Lemme, Patrick Swayze, me, and half of Heffernan’s forehead at our Stuff magazine party at Sundance, 2001.
Hanging with our British tour manager, Wilko, on the Super Troopers tour, 2001.
Steve and me, between shows. Backstage on tour, 2004.
The General Lee. Yeeeehaaaaw!!!
Willie and me cracking jokes on his bus, the Honeysuckle Rose.
Seann did a lot of his own driving.
She made me wear these.
The Beerfest shoot. Riding this five-man bike was terrifying because it weighed a ton. I was worried that it would break all our legs.
Beerfest poster outside Warner Bros.
On the road, playing cards with Billy the Dummy.
Car Ram Rod.
Jon Pack/Fox Searchlight Pictures
Super Troopers 2—with bigger mustaches!
Jon Pack/Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Kevin, Rich Perello, and me on set, in “that most important conversation.”
Jon Pack/Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Holy shit. We’re in a movie with Rob Lowe.
Jon Pack/Fox Searchlight Pictures.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my wife for sharpening my wit and for supporting me in this career that allows me to stay a kid.
And thanks to my kids, who are endless fountains of hilarity.
And thanks to my agent, Byrd Leavell, who has been a great ally throughout this new process.
And thanks to my editor, Jill Schwartzman, who was enormously helpful in making this into a coherent tale.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jay Chandrasekhar is a director, actor, writer, and comedian best known for the cult classics Super Troopers and Beerfest. He has also directed for numerous popular TV shows, including Arrested Development, Community, Chuck, The Grinder, New Girl, and Psych. He lives with his wife and children in Los Angeles.
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Mustache Shenanigans Page 26
