I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

As I have explained before, we not only independently made this movie, we independently distributed it. This is an extremely risky strategy, and one that had a very low chance of success. We knew this going in, and we rolled the dice anyway because we believed in the quality of the movie and thought my fan base was big enough and responsive enough to launch the movie.

Well, the test is in the results, and the first week numbers are back, and they are…well, they’re not good or bad, which is the weirdest thing. If they had been awesome, then we had a plan on how to capture the momentum and really push this to huge heights. And if the numbers just sucked, then we had a plan on how to best cut our losses and position the DVD.

But our numbers are neither; they are all over map. In some cities and complexes, we are the #1 movie, in others, we barely got anyone out. We averaged a $3,000 per screen average, which is not really good or bad–it’s mediocre, which is what makes it so perplexing. It’s not a bomb, but it’s not really good enough to justify triggering a huge expansion loan. So we are stuck in something of a middle ground: We have a movie that is doing extremely good in some areas, not good in others.

Here is the most frustrating part: We know the movie is great. We have now screened this for 15,000 people, and seen the raucous standing ovations after every screening. We heard from at least 20 independent sources about crowds erupting in applause after seeing in theaters all over the country on opening weekend. I even saw it myself at one place, when no one in the crowd knew I was there. We know the people that are seeing it are loving it. People who hate a movie don’t sit on negative feedback, and you can search on Twitter and Facebook and see the overwhelmingly positive response. For every negative response about the movie, there are 80 positive. It’s crazy.

But the other main response we are getting, especially from fans, is “There is a Tucker Max movie coming out?” We clearly didn’t reach enough of my fans to get their awareness about the movie up and get them out to the theaters the first weekend. I think the main problem comes back to an issue we knew we had going in: Money. It is extremely difficult to market a movie without dumping at least 20 million dollars into it. The Hangover spent 40 million on advertising. We spent 4 million. Maybe what we tried to do is impossible, or maybe it is possible and we just didn’t use the right strategy. Either way, we knew this movie would start in my fans and then–if they loved it, which they are–it would expand from there and reach mainstream. But it has to hit a lot of the established fans first, and we clearly have not done a good enough job reaching enough of them.

So what do we do now? Two things:

1. Ask fans to talk about the movie: If you’ve seen the movie, please tell your friends. It’s that simple. There is no question in my mind that this thing will blow up on DVD and make us a grip of cash, and that’ll be nice, but we’d really like it to do well theatrically as well, and in order for that to happen, we need word of mouth. So tell your friends.

2. Extend the tour: After talking about it, we have decided to extend the promotional tour. This tour has been the best vehicle to promote the movie, and push the awareness of the movie, even among my fans. To that end, we are going to keep doing promotion stops for at least two more weeks, and keep trying to get the word out. Here is the plan:

Wednesday, Sept 30:
Louisville, Kentucky
Sully’s Saloon
9pm-1am
434 S. 4th St
Louisville, KY

Thursday, Oct 1:
Nashville, Tennessee
McFadden’s
9pm-1am
134 2nd Ave N
Nashville, TN
(615) 686-2482

Friday, Oct 2:
Knoxville
Bar TBA

Saturday, Oct 3:
Knoxville
Tailgating at Neyland Stadium

Here’s the deal: Come to any of the places we are, bring your ticket showing you went to see “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” at any theater, and we’ll give you one of the IHTSBIH shirts we have here. And of course, I’ll be at all these places to sign whatever you want, get pictures, flirt with hot girls, etc.

And yes, I still have to post the Tempe, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco write-ups. All the videos are up though, you can see them here.