I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

At the distributor screening, we only had one single press person, Eric Brach, from Box Office Magazine. I invited Eric not because I knew him–I did not, and met him for the first time at the screening–but rather by chance. He emailed me a few weeks before the screening to get a quote from me about a story he was doing. I gave him some quotes, then read his previous stuff and found him to be fair, objective, and intelligent, and thought the movie would appeal to him, so I invited him to the screening. He agreed, saw the movie, and his review is below. On the whole, I think it is exactly what a good review should be: Fair and objective. Plus, he likes the movie, so that was nice to hear:

“Based on the memoir of the same name, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell is a grand, farcical, road-tripping romp in the vein of National Lampoon’s Vacation and Road Trip, but updated with the crass, guy’s-night-out humor of Role Models and The 40 Year-Old Virgin. With a top-notch script penned in part by the book’s author, Tucker Max, and winning performances from lead Matt Czuchry (Gilmore Girls), straight man Geoff Stults (7th Heaven) and scene-stealer Jesse Bradford (W., Flags of Our Fathers), the film seems sure to please fans of the genre. If over-the-top buddy comedies keep cashing in at the theatres the way they have been in the past few yearsI Hope They Serve Beer In Hell should find itself enjoying similar box office success.
Question: If you and your friends went on a prurient road trip that involved the commission of multiple criminal offenses, one arrest, a prison beating, the egregious waste of hundreds of dollars at a variety of strip clubs, solicitation, destruction of public property, drunk and disorderly conduct, public urination, hotel blacklisting and public defecation, would you: A.) Try your best to bury the story in your deep, dark past; B.) Rub it in the noses of all your friends who weren’t there; or, C.) Make a feature film about the misadventure and proclaim your misdeeds to the world?
Most Americans would probably pick A. Some would pick B. Max, for his part, picked C, and it is the story of moral morass, hilariously fictionalized (but only just), that makes up the plot of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.
The film opens with an introduction to Tucker (Czuchry), a Peter Pan-like lothario who finds himself enrolled in law school–where he’s as likely to be found in the bar or with coeds as attending his actual classes. Clearly the Big Man On Campus, Tucker exudes the same causal rakishness when matching wits with his professors as he does when ensnaring women.
However, Tucker’s two best friends fail to share his self-assuredness. Drew (Bradford), a caustic, cynical shut-in cut from the image of a boiling-mad, asocial Henry Rollins, is the victim of a cheating girlfriend and a heartless breakup; he spends most of his time playing video games and railing against the opposite sex. Dan (Stults), for his part, is engaged to the love of his life and is, at the film’s opening, less than two weeks away from his wedding day. It is Dan’s upcoming nuptials–and the attendant, mandatory bachelor party–that serves as the main driver of plot.
Above the wishes of his friends, Tucker drags the trio’s party to the far-off town of Salem, site of a notoriously decadent strip club. Dan seethes over the deception inherent in the trip. Drew, for his part, seethes at the forced interaction with the opposite sex. Tucker, of course, simply drinks in all that Salem has to offer, and while his friends undergo critical moments of self-reflection, Tucker simply rides along the tracks of consequence-free, in-the-moment based living. The intersection of Tucker’s static outlook and the trauma and catharsis undergone by his friends leads to an inevitable confrontation, and though it takes time to play itself out, Tucker is ultimately faced with the truth: that he must learn to value others as he values himself, or else face the consequences of losing his closest friends altogether.
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell has been analogized to the archetypal hero’s journey, and it is a somewhat fitting comparison. But to simply harp on this aspect of the story and categorize the film as an R-rated reimagining of Star Wars would miss the point. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell strives to be–and is, at its core–a genuinely funny gross-out comedy about guys getting into trouble. Fans of Tucker Max will recognize much of the book’s original Austin Road Trip story, with bits and pieces of other salacious tales mixed in at times as well. Sex and excretion jokes, attacks on social taboos and shocking sight gags are this film’s stock in trade–and they are clearly so by choice.
And–and this is important–they are done well.
There are people who will not like this movie (that goes without saying) but I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell doesn’t aim to be all things to all people. It aims to be a sex-driven romp through real-life guydom, a mirror held up to the best and weirdest aspects of the male social dynamic. At this, it succeeds. The classics of the guys’ comedy genre of the last ten years–Super Troopers, American Pie, and their ilk–became so because they so perfectly captured and distilled the oddest and funniest moments of what it’s like when a group of guys get together and let their baser impulses run wild. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell laudably does just the same–with its sensibilities updated for the current shock threshold, of course–and, in all likelihood, will find itself held in the same esteem as those other films upon its release.”

Comment and discuss

I know we keep posting positive reactions to the movie, but I swear to god, at this point, that is pretty much all we have to post. The only negative things we’ve heard were from a few of the people in the various early screenings, and I can’t post those critiques because either they are about things we’ve subsequently changed (like pacing issues) or they are all very specific and include spoilers. Like I said before, I am 100% positive that there will be plenty of negative reaction to the movie when it comes out, but as of today, the 1000 or so people who have seen it have had an overwhelmingly positive response.
That being said, the written word is a very different beast than video. The only people who take the time to write about a movie are usually the ones who either really like it or really hate it, and never the people in the middle. So I asked Greg to come to the distributor screening and get some video reactions of people to post, so you could see an actual, in the moment reaction from a real audience. Aside from one person (who is clearly and comically labeled), I don’t know these people, and Greg didn’t coach their responses at all:


Comment and discuss

A few random things while we wait on the distribution announcement:
-Don’t forget to sign up for at least one of the various ways for us to notify you of upcoming events. We already offered a free sneak preview screening to people in LA, and have lots more events coming around the country. The people on these lists will always get the offers first:
Email List
Twitter
Facebook (IHTSBIH)
Facebook (Tucker Max)
MySpace (IHTSBIH)
MySpace (Tucker Max)
-I just read Traci Lord’s autobiography, Underneath It All, and I was kinda shocked. It is amazingly good, and very well written. Don’t get me wrong, her prose isn’t perfect by any stretch, but the book is incredibly authentic and emotionally self-aware, something that is SO rare in writing, especially autobiographies. I already know from working with her that Traci is very smart, but man–this book is so much more than I expected it to be. If you are a Traci Lords fan or like compelling autobiographies, I highly recommend it.
-I have been nominated to Time’s 100 Most Influential List. No, I’m not kidding, you can even vote for me here. My only goal in this is to move past Zac Efron. I’m only one point away, so get to voting.
-The book is at #3 this week on the best seller list, the highest it’s ever been. In it’s forth year of publication.
-The last month has been so weird for me in this way: I have been recognized more in this past month than ever before. In the elevator of my building, walking my dog in back trails at Runyon Canyon, at my gym, dozens of times in Vegas–it’s like all at once, I went from being recognized once a day at most, to being constantly recognized. Weird. I used to want this attention, but I am not that stupid anymore. I will be glad to pass this stuff to Matt.
Comment and discuss

We are pretty close to making the distributor announcement. Sean has brow-beaten me about not saying anything, so I won’t.
OK, we all I know I can’t not say anything. I will say this:
When we were initially deciding who and how to distribute, I thought our choices were between OK, Not Bad, and Pretty Good. No matter what, we had a great film and it was going to get to theaters, which is really all you can ask for when making a movie.
Well, as with many of my expectations in the movie-making process, it looks like I was wrong again. There was a fourth option–Really Fucking Awesome. I knew about this option from the start but never really considered it because I didn’t think anyone else wanted it, so I just dismissed it. But it went from an outside, no-real-chance option, to a maybe, to now it looks like it’s the way we are going to go, and I am very very excited about the plan that has been formed. [As a side note, whatever plan we go with to distribute the movie, it will be essentially the same to the average consumer--no matter what deal we do, the movie will be released in the same theaters every other movie is released in, in the same basic way. 99% of the differences will be things that the viewers never see.]
That’s all I can say without Sean getting pissed at me. But hopefully by late this week or early next week, I’ll be cleared to explain exactly all the specifics of our distribution plan, and why I am so excited about it.
In the meantime, if you have nothing better to do, you can read another review by someone who was at the latest screening. I know these are getting redundant, but it’s all I have to post review-wise. I am sure when the movie comes out there will be plenty of negative reviews (and we will post them here along with the positive ones), but as of now, no one has written one:

“Last week, I had the opportunity to go see a screening of Tucker Max’s upcoming movie, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. Although I’d made some predictions about how well it was going to do based on the marketing alone, my claims were more or less unsubstantiated because I had no idea whether the movie was good or bad.
And I want to just say, before I give my opinion, that I was actively looking for substantial flaws with this movie. Everything I’ve read about it has been overwhelmingly positive, and it just seemed unrealistic to me. Some people have pointed out pacing issues or whatever, but no one has flat out said “this movie sucks.”
Well, you can add me to the pile of positive reviews. I can’t dissent just for the sake of it: this movie was funny as hell.
And I can now say with confidence that I think this movie will blow up. It’s hilarious and edgy (it easily has one of the most graphic and disgusting scenes of any movie I’ve ever seen, but you’ll be laughing too hard to care), and it has a solid storyline to boot. Fans will quickly see that it has the classic Tucker formula of low-brow humor mixed with sharp and witty dialogue. But what really stood out to me was how authentic it was. There weren’t any stupid hijinks or ridiculous plot twists that jolt you out of the story. It was just an honest comedy (which is exceedingly rare). I walked out feeling like I’d just watched funnier, smarter versions of my friends on a big screen for two hours.
So here’s what I think is going to happen: this movie is initially going to be seen by all of Tucker’s fans. College and high school kids will go to theaters in droves to see it. Then word-of-mouth is really going to kick in, and people who have never read Tucker’s book or been to his site will go see the movie. Multiple times.
Think about this for a second: what happens when you discover a hilarious movie that none of your friends know about? You tell all of them and beg them to see it, right? That’s what I’ve been doing for years with Windy City Heat, for instance. I’ve made several of my close friends watch it, given the DVD as a gift a few times, and talked it up to anyone who I think has a similar sense of humor. That’s what’s going to happen with Tucker’s movie. People who have never heard of him or his stories will see it once, then drag their friends to the theater to watch it again.
Keep in mind that I fall into Tucker’s target market. I’m a 22-year old male who already likes his stories. But what I think is really going to surprise people is how much this movie will appeal to the older crowd. I was talking to a 46-year old guy after the movie (I asked how old he was), and he absolutely loved it. He said it reminded him of his wildest days in college and how much fun he used to have.
On top of that, I also overheard a distributor as I was walking out of the theater, saying, “This movie was so eff-ing funny. And the thing I liked most about it was that it made fun of everyone. No group was singled out, and everyone was equally offended.”
You can take my opinion with a grain of salt if you want, or dismiss it altogether because you think I’m a biased source. But I’ve been a fan of Tucker’s since 2004. I’ve introduced his site and his book to at least 10 of my friends. I’m not touting this movie because I recently met the guy — I’m touting it because it has merit. It’s original, fresh, and genuinely very funny. I guarantee you’ll laugh your ass off.
My prediction remains the same:
This movie will be big. Very big. And the mainstream press will not see it coming.
—-
And lastly, I just want to add that the three main actors hit it out of the park. They were all hilarious and extremely likable. Especially Jesse Bradford. That guy stole almost every single scene he was in.”

After the screening, me, Nils, Bob, Sean and everyone else were swamped with people praising the movie, but that’s to be expected, I guess. I mean, even if the movie sucked, how many people would come up and say something to that effect? Well, actually my friends would, but not many other people.
But now the energy of the screening itself has worn off and the secondary feedback is starting to come, and it is really good. Not only the buzz we are hearing about–which has been even better than I thought it would be–but the stuff people are taking the time to write out to us.
Here is a selection that I think it is representative of the majority of opinions we’ve heard:

From Traci Lords:

“Loved the movie! Stunned u got an R! F*ck that shit waz dope!!!! Congrats. U must be laughin….”

From David Zuckerman:

“I never made it to the bar, but wanted to tell you again how excited and proud I am to be part of your movie. You guys really pulled it together and judging from the crowd’s reaction, I think it’s going to be very successful. Isn’t it nice when hard work and dedication to one’s vision pays off?”
And I wasn’t bullshitting you about the Oscar thing, dude. I’m not saying I’d lay money on it, I’m just saying it’s possible.”

From a random fan I don’t know:

“Tucker, (and whoever else might read this)
As one of the “random fans” who made it to last night’s screening after you sent out that last minute invite I just wanted to thank you for giving us all that opportunity and commend you for doing so well at following your own advice not to burn out your permission resources. I’m fairly certain that that’s the ONLY mailing that I’ve gotten since I signed up for the mailing list, which gives it a 100% rate of relevance/interest(not bad).
Anyway, with regards to the film itself I went in with very high expectations (since you and others have been talking it up so much around here), but also was slightly apprehensive. What if it was all just talk?
The writing was the first thing that I noticed; fast paced and witty, it felt like “Studio 60″ “Sports Night” or “West Wing” except relevant. While I definitely wouldn’t say that this carried the film, it was definitely the single strongest element.
The cinematography was also solid, although the way [a specific scene] was cut together felt a bit jarring. I especially liked the “Cops” style handheld work in the opening scene.
The only thing that I thought detracted from the film in any notable way was the acting in a couple of the earlier scenes, notably [scene descriptions redacted]. But as the story built up it seemed like the characters all began to become more believable, and it’s always great to show the studios that the “no-name” actors can do just as well if not better than the headliners. ‘Drew’ in particular hit home as an incredibly well developed character and supremely likeable in that misanthropic way. I know that his and ‘Lara’s story is the secondary plotline, but it was, for me, the more engrossing and more fulfilling of the two (the blazing hot Marika Dominczyk might have something to do with that).
Anyway, simply put this is by far the funniest film that I’ve seen in ages, and I get the feeling that every time that I see it (which I think will be many) I’ll find something new that I missed previously to laugh at. But under the funny is that bit of a heart that seems to be missing in so many other comedies. Not in a schmaltzy way, but in a realistic “Hey, these guys actually learned something” way.
I don’t know whether you should chalk it up to the manner in which you’ve managed to make all of us in the extended community feel like we have a vested interest in this film, or the fact that I just enjoyed it so damned much, but you’ve definitely earned yourself another surrogate spreading the good word of mouth that this film deserves. I wish you guys all the best of results, and can’t wait to drag all my friends out to the theatres so that I won’t be the only one who gets all the quotes that keep popping into my head.”

From an actor buddy of mine, Vic Webster:

“Thought it was great bro!!! One of those movies you can quote things from and have to see a few times to get it all. Especially Drew. Loved that cantankerous fuck. Good work.”

From another random fan:

“Hey Tucker,
I picked up your book this summer and I’m a big fan of your work, especially because it’s similar to my stand-up material (except my shit is more based off true events and then enhanced). So when my friend from the USC lax team told me he was going to the IHTSBIH premier I half-seriously offered to blow him if he took me with. Long story short I swallowed and wound up at the premier last night with him and some of his frat bros. We all thought it was phenomenal, man. The laugh lines just kept coming, I hardly had a minute to breath. Jesse Bradford locked it down.
I can’t believe [specific scene spoilers redacted]. Fuckin genius. Obviously, the [spoiler redacted] was hilarious; the [spoiler redacted] was a nice touch. It was money how you set up your cameo, too. There were a few things that could’ve been enhanced with a bigger budget, but obviously there’s only so much you can do there.
I look forward to hearing from you and I can’t wait to see how the world takes Tucker Max on the big screen. Congrats on all your success.”

From Mark Ebner:

“I just walked out of the distributor screening, and, god help us all, Tucker Max (and anyone else with points on the film) is rich.”

Comment and discuss

So, I originally planned to try to keep it a bit of a secret, but you can’t keep anything secret in Hollywood, so I might as well be the one to talk about it:
The distributor screening was last night. We had 133 executives from 53 distribution companies RSVP, and 130 of them showed up. I have no idea if this is true at all, but everyone I talked to said they’d never seen a distributor screening outside of a festival with that much buzz and that many companies represented. We decided to show the movie to the distributors in front of an audience, so we played it in a screening room with about 400 seats, and filled the place with friends, various students from UCLA, Loyola, USC, military guys, and assorted other people.
Afterwards we all went to a bar and got ridiculously drunk, and you only do that for one of two reasons: You are very happy or very sad. I can’t talk about specifics until the deal is done, but I will say that no one is sad right now. I will be able to report very good news soon. When exactly, I am not sure–might be tomorrow, might be in three weeks. But as soon as we have picked the distributor we want to go with and the deal is official, you’ll know.
Now that those details are out of the way, I want to talk about something else. We ended up, by an accident that was out of our control, having about 10 extra seats in the theater. I found out about this at 4pm, and instead of calling friends or whatever to fill the seats, I decided to try an experiment. I sent out a blast on my Twitter account, an email to the movie’s Facebook fan page, my Facebook fan page (both geolocated to California, b/c Facebook offers that option), and sent an email to the TuckerMax.com email list, offering the seats first-come, first-served to anyone who wanted to show up. I wasn’t sure what to expect–this was an offer with only two hours notice, and it was sent during rush hour in Los Angeles, the worst driving city in America. I didn’t know if anyone would make it.
Well, I of all people should know to never to doubt the power of the interwebs. I could barely deal with the responses of people wanting to come, even under those absurd conditions, and we ended up filling the seats with random fans in like five minutes.
This is why you want to sign up for one of those things–follow my Twitter account, either the movie’s Facebook fan page or my Facebook fan page, or the email list (or even the movie’s MySpace page or mine, I was going to send the offer out as a bulletin there as well, but I already had enough acceptances from the other places).
As we go forward, when I have things like this to offer, I am going to offer it first to those who have expressed the most interest in hearing about it. It just makes sense–why spam everyone, when you can have a direct conduit to people who want to hear it? Permission marketing is the future, and I am on board.
Oh yeah–my favorite moment of the screening: After it was over I was in the lobby talking to Traci Lords about the movie (she loved it), and these two young guys come up to us:
Guy “Hey Tucker, can I get a picture with you?”
Tucker “I’m standing next to Traci Lords…and you want a picture with me? Not her?”
Indeed he did.
I don’t even know what to say.
Comment and discuss

It’s pilot season in Hollywood, and so far I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell has proven to be a good luck charm for all three male leads:
-Geoff Stults landed the lead in “Happy Town,” a series that I have heard ABC is very excited about and will probably pick up.
-Jesse Bradford has landed a main role in “The Eastmans,” a pilot on CBS about a family of doctors.
-Matt Czuchry was cast for “The Good Wife,” where he’ll play a first year associate in a CBS pilot about a politician’s wife who gets a job at a law firm.
I’m totally kidding about the title of this blog post; I seriously doubt the movie had anything to do with them landing these parts. They are each phenomenal actors, and though I believe this movie will be what makes them into household name stars, they would have gotten there eventually on their own. It’s only a matter of time for each of them and our movie just happened to be first.
That is actually one of the things I am most excited about as this movie goes forward–not just the success that I will have and the movie will have, but how this success will affect other people, people who believed in me when very few others did and put their time and effort into this project.
Nils is the most obvious one; this dude has been on the project from basically day one and has dedicated his life to it. No one has put more on the line or more of their soul into this except for me. Not to mention his wife Jen was the first one to put money into the movie. Max helped us when no one would take a meeting with us, Aaron gave us his expertise when other people dismissed us, Bob signed on to direct before we were financed, Sean, Richard and Ted put up millions of dollars, and Matt, Jesse and Geoff skipped other bigger projects and gave us three months of their lives because they believed so deeply in us and our vision.
I know most of what I talk about on this blog focuses on me–such is life as a narcissist. But I hope I don’t give the impression that the other people don’t matter. I want this thing to succeed for all the obvious reasons–so I can buy a G5, for instance–but also because I really want all of these people who believed in me and sacrificed for this project to get everything they deserve. They took a risk and bet on two completely unknown producer/writers who had a funny script and a unique vision, and nothing will make me happier than to have them succeed right alongside me.
After all, success shared is the sweetest kind.
Comment and discuss

Just got back from Mexico and Germany, and I need to sleep for like two straight days. But something real quick I had to share:
For over two years, I have been telling anyone who would listen that this movie was going to be big. Everywhere from my message board to this blog to private conversations–I have said it over and over again–this thing is going to be big.
Some people have expressed doubt, and that’s cool. I might doubt my predictions too if I didn’t know the things I know. But it’s going to happen, and when it does, don’t say I didn’t warn you. All the signs are there. From the Washington Post:

Nicholas DiSabatino, a senior English major at Kent State, is co-editor of the university’s literary magazine, Luna Negra. As a campus tour guide, he used to point out where the National Guard shot students during the May 1970 riot. But the only activism he can recall lately involved anti-abortion protesters and some old men passing out Gideon Bibles. “People think we’re really liberal,” he says, “but we’re really very moderate.” Submissions to the lit mag so far this year are mostly poetry and some memoirs about parents. “The one book that I know everyone has read,” he says, “is ‘I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.’ ” So, no uprising unless the bars close early.

EDIT: Some people think I post stuff like this to brag or hype. Not the case. Read my reasoning here.
EDIT 2: And since we’re on this subject, this is what happened to Bob Gosse last week:

So i found the Digi Beta Master for my movie “Niagara Niagara” last week and figure I will make DVD’s. I look up a DVD duplication place online and find one over in Hollywood. Drive over there and realize that [company removed] is the exact same company we screened the film at last friday. I tell the guy at the front desk I want to make like 20 DVD’s and he hooks me up. Then he says wait a sec…
He goes and brings out the projectionist from our screening. The projectionist (maybe 30 or so) says “Dude, I been working here nine months. I screen four movies a day. That was the best film I have seen since I started working here.” Then shakes my hand…
pretty cool…

Comment and discuss