RobMakesMovies.com

I’ve been following Tucker Max’s I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell film as it has gone through the process of finding a studio to fund, getting the production rolling, and getting a distributor. All throughout the process, Tucker would update his blog with words of encouragement to his fans, “This movie is so fucking awesome, I am convinced it’s going to be a hit…” and so on and so forth. Recently he announced the film had picked up a Distributor… Yay. He never really got into who it was, or anything else. As I was perusing Box Office Mojo today, I found out.

Freestyle Releasing, known most recently for spreading more Uwe Boll trash, such as In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, has picked up the distribution rights. Now, the reason this is a bad, is because of the initial release that is currently listed. According to Box Office Mojo, the September 25, 2009, release of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell is set at 450 theaters. Source. What makes this BAD is the fact that Freestyle’s history of films making a decent theatrical gross, especially with films budgeted at $10,000,000(Like Beer In Hell was), isn’t good unless there is a release of 1,600 or more theaters. The films that Freestyle Releasing has that had ~450 theaters on it’s initial release made no more than $4,078,607. That number is Freestyle’s August 2008 release Bottle Shock.

Now does my concern seem validated? Now I don’t have the background details, so Tucker’s blog post stating,

We still haven’t decided precisely how many screens we will open on or in what cities. This has become a very interesting discussion: Do we open relatively small the first weekend and open on 500 screens in the key 50 markets only, which will get massive per screen averages and build buzz for an expansion (like Slumdog Millionaire), or do we immediately open wide with 2000 screens in every market (like most studio movies)?

may be the truth, or might not. He has no reason to lie, unless he knows it would sound bad that the movie based on his bestselling book is in the shitter. He does have a massive tour designed to hit up damn near every major college in the U.S., which is definitely a great way to generate additional buzz, but it still seems strange that the Producers would keep the 450 theater release as an option, if this was “going to be a hit either way…”

Something doesn’t smell right about this. Far too many good things to set this film in motion, only to be halted here. It seems to me like someone either got greedy with their contracts, or made a dumb decision.

I guess we’ll all have to see how this pans out.

-Robert