The blog for aspiring & established filmmakers of independent films. by ted hope.

The 1 Movie You Must Make Sure You See This April. Or I Won’t Talk To YOU Ever Again.

I have a lot of films that I want to check out this month, but I have already seen the one film that really matters. Without a doubt, I can tell you that it is the way to spend your money. The rest of the films might as well give up now. You know I have some complaints of films as of late, but I like to take my remedy straight, no rocks or filters. Cinema, pure and unbridled. You know what I am talking about?

You know when you go to the movies and that jerkhead cuts in line? Don’t you sometimes wish you could smash his friggin’ face in? With a ten pound wrench? Don’t do it. Don’t sell drugs either. Or molest children. Or even put on a costume and attack those that do such vile acts.

You know when you go to the movies and everything seems incredibly programmed and test-marketed? You know how you are starting to really hate that? You know how sometimes you watch a film and wish you were living back in the days when occasionally you could see something that felt like it burst from an unbridled mind that didn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought and it was just going to go there no matter what? Wouldn’t you just love to have that type of movie back?

SUPER is a blood-splattered comedy that will make you cry real tears. SUPER is a film that will have you saying WTF! more than once. SUPER is filled with the sort of go for broke committed performances that will have you worshiping the ground that these thespians grace. SUPER is the shrieking plea in your ears all these years to finally let the lunatics run the asylum. Go ahead, drink the kool-aid. All it takes to be a superhero is to say you’ve had enough. Shut up, crime.

I am not going to lie. I produced this film. But what I produced (with MIranda Bailey) is 100% James Gunn, our writer, our director, our resident mad man. We have had incredible screenings of SUPER everywhere. No one can be lukewarm about this film. It opens on Friday April 1st (no fooling) and you want to make sure you are there.
It is not for the faint of heart or those who don’t like to have a bit of blood with their humor. Or want their entertainment sanitized of non-PC content. This ain’t that, but it is a blast. I promise you that. Several blasts as a matter of fact.

Just about this time two years ago, I was frustrated by how engineered all films felt to me. Even the indie work I was seeing felt devoid of the sort of unbridled craziness that initially lead me to fall in love with cinema. I wanted a return to jaw dropping moments and moments of questionable intent. Where had all the WhatTheFuck gone in film? Could film still be made from what appeared to be a wonderfully warped mind? Haven’t we had enough of the beautiful minds by now?

Simultaneously I was pondering what the psychological effects on society our national obsession with super heroes was having. If the high esteem we deem upon supermodels was undermining some women’s self-worth, what did the pinnacle we placed costumed crime fighters on do to a man’s perception of masculinity. Let’s be real, superheroes and war are our two top exports — there’s gotta be a connection, right?

I started scouring the development pipelines for a project that might do justice to both. I was coming up empty-handed, but had heard tales of just such a morsel by a filmmaker whom I admired that had almost gone into production years earlier for a whopping cost of $25M. Then I saw Rainn Wilson tweet that he “and james_gunn were going out with a low-rent f’d up Watchmen” — and I pounced. One year after we went out for financing, we premiered it at Toronto, where it was the first film sold in what later proved to be the tipping point out of a three year down market downturn.

This is one time where I have distributors who, despite some extreme stuff, have no fear of what this film is. Our poster and trailer truly represent the work as we intended. It’s been an amazing experience, and I am thrilled to bring to you, my film friends. It opens on Friday, April Fools Day, and I would love your dollars and support.

Watch the SUPER trailer.
Check SUPER out on facebook
Follow @SUPERthemovie on twitter.
Watch the Crimson Bolt patrol the streets of Austin.
Read one of the many good reviews for SUPER!
Rock your block out to the SUPER soundtrack at http://bit.ly/Superitunes
You can’t be a movie without an app. Check out the app for SUPER.

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Meet Ted

Hope offers his unique perspective on how to make movies while keeping your integrity intact and how to create a sustainable business enterprise out of that art while staying true to yourself.

Meet Ted

Ted Hope is a “holistic film producer”: he aims to be there from the beginning and then forever after, involved in every aspect of a film’s life cycle and ecosystem, as committed to engineering serendipity as preventing problems, as obsessed with lifting the good into the great, as he is…

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