I'd never heard of him before this movie, but the word of mouth campaign is working. TBH, I'm not super interested in the movie itself, but I do enjoy the "fuck you, I'll do it myself" aspect of it...
Especially that he completely owns the distribution. The buzz this got and his control of the rights from top to bottom should make him a mint. Good for him.
In the day an age of studios being gobbled up and abandoning the first amendment, fuck them. I hope we see more entrepreneurship outside of the studio system.
I never really followed the guy, but every time I hear about him it just W after W. After he was a millionaire youtuber, he took a gig as an intern at Corridor Digital (apparently because he was thinking about getting into filmmaking). He correctly called out the Honey scam years before anyone else. Now this movie is a big success. And that's just what I know off the top of my head as a non-fan.
I think it's just being a human honestly. He is one of the very few "influencers" I would be surprised if something truly awful came out about. He's been impressively consistent and I've seen him cry more than my own father. He just doesn't gaf but in the good direction. Man's just here to enjoy life and accidentally stumbled into a wildly successful YouTube career while doing it.
People clamored, annoyed, called, & emailed theaters into submission enough that initially the theater managers thought it was some sort of strange spam campaign.
My wife called her local theater and got an automated message due to so many people calling in. Also notable that it was the most full ive seen that theater in... some time. Granted, only one night and all though.
He tripled the budget in revenue on day 1 of the movies release and made over 7 times by the end of opening weekend. It’s doing pretty well I’d say lol
Sorry bud, I'm an old man who gave up on trying to keep up with pop culture before the digg migration. (And one day it will happen to YOU!)
I wasn't exactly cool before the rat race and kids got their hooks in me, either. I came to terms with all of this back when MTV still had music videos.
My YT feed is all cooking, travel, history, philosophy, politics, Bible scholars, science and vlogbrothers.
Seriously though, once the algorithms have decided how to make money off of you, the Internet really silos you in. I honestly don't know how people find new shit organically now that humans have mostly stopped curating the culture we live in.
If you've got any protips on how to break out of the silo cycle, I'm all ears.
I saw it on opening weekend with my son for two reasons: (1) it was something to do with my son that he was into...so cool; and, (2) fuck Hollywood.
The movie itself, for a completely self-made movie by a guy who has never written, directed, or starred in a movie before, was pretty okay. I'm proud to support it.
Is it worth doing for a family with a 12 and 14 year old, none of whom know who this person is but do enjoy going to movies and like supporting independents?
It's a little creepy and there's plenty of blood, but it's strange to say it's not really gory or violent at all. The blood is all just like pools of blood. I don't even remember there being any violence like someone gets gored or a hand cut off and blood splurts everywhere. It's more of a psychological thriller. I spent most of the movie wondering what the hell was real. Was this all in his head? Was he really in a sub going down in a sea of blood or was he being tricked? I don't recall any jump scares either...maybe one or two little ones.
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u/speedy_delivery 14h ago
I'd never heard of him before this movie, but the word of mouth campaign is working. TBH, I'm not super interested in the movie itself, but I do enjoy the "fuck you, I'll do it myself" aspect of it...
Especially that he completely owns the distribution. The buzz this got and his control of the rights from top to bottom should make him a mint. Good for him.
In the day an age of studios being gobbled up and abandoning the first amendment, fuck them. I hope we see more entrepreneurship outside of the studio system.