Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 344: How a Predatory Film Distributor Screwed Over a Filmmaker with Terminal Cancer

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BPS 344: How a Predatory Film Distributor Screwed Over a Filmmaker with Terminal Cancer · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
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Episode number three forty four. The most powerful weapon on Earth is the
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human soul on fire. Anonymous broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood
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when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting
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Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to
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make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host
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Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now.
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So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers,
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head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Well, guys, today, this
1:37
show is man. I don't even know how to say it. I am
1:42
extremely pissed off and extremely upset or having to do a podcast like this today.
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On the show, I have filmmaker Michael Daniel and his film Get Gone
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was licensed to a film distributor in the UK called Phoenix Worldwide Entertainment and they
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offered him a hundred thousand dollars MG or minimum guarantee upfront. Now, Michael
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did everything in his power to get everything done and all the deliverables delivered according
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to the agreement. And he did that. He even sold his truck to
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get those deliverables done, and that cost him anywhere about fifteen thousand dollars fourteen
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to fifteen thousand dollars something along those lines to get the deliverables done for his
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film. And he was supposed to get the money, the one hundred thousand
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dollars right away. It has been a year and a half and they're still
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playing around with not paying Michael. Now, this story in itself is not
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as unique as I wish it would be. I hear stories like this all
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the time. Many of us have heard stories of distributors not living up to
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their agreements. But the thing that adds a little bit extra salt on this
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wound is that Michael is fighting stage four cancer. He has terminal cancer,
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and he is fighting for his life. And he told me that this distributor
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is literally waiting for him to die so he doesn't have to pay him.
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I mean, I thought I've heard everything in regards to predatory distributors. I
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thought, I've I've seen the lowest bottom of the barrel kind of situation.
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But this takes the cake. This is at a whole other level of evil.
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Now. I saw this video, this very passionate video that Michael posted
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in our Facebook group how to Protect yourself from Predatory Film Distributors slash Aggregators.
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And he posted this video there and I was away. He was literally telling
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a story about how he's fighting States four colon cancer and he's stressed out,
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and he's lost friends, and he's lost family, and you know, he's
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almost homeless. He's sold his car, all this whole story while these guys
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Phoenix Worldwide Entertainment, according to him, have not have done everything in their
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power to not pay him. And Michael had proof, emails, contracts,
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FedEx, receipts, everything, and we put all of that information in an
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article that he wrote because I wanted him to tell his story in his own
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words at the show notes at indie filmhusseole dot com forward slash four thirteen and
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you could read that there and also see the original video along with other videos
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in regards to his journey fighting cancer and his journey making his film. Now,
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after I heard his story, I started to do some resear on Phoenix
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Worldwide Entertainment and what I found was not only disturbing, but I was just
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overwhelmed at the just immense amount of fraud cases and impropriety and lawsuits that this
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man and these companies that he runs has had over the years. And I
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have links to all of the research that I found at the show notes,
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but I'll give you just the cliff notes of what I discovered. He was
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accused of raising money for a film called Mary, Mother of Christ using the
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name of Oscar winning producers and director Mel Gibson. Mister Gibson had never heard
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of the project. He also did the same thing with a film called Henry
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the Fifth, where he supposedly had starring Tom Hardy, Albert Fiddy, William
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H. Macy, Sashabar Cohen, Michael Caine, Girod Deperdue, and Ray
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Winston attached to the projects as well, and when the actors agents were contacted,
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they said they had never heard of the project and had nothing to do
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with it. And then, once again, through another company that he co
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founded called Stealth Media Group, which is a finance and international sales company,
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he was accused of doing the same thing again using John Travolta's name for an
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animated film called Gummy Bears. Again, mister Travolta, when reached, knew
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nothing of the project and had no involvement in the film. And the list
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goes on and on on the amount of scandals and accusations against mister Cohen and
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his companies. Guys, I have to say something here. This needs to
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stop. This kind of absolute crap that keeps happening in our business needs to
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stop. This system is broken. If predatory film distributors can continue to get
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away with screwing film producers and filmmakers again and again and again, the system
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is broken and needs to be changed. And the only weapon that we as
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filmmakers have against these predatory distributors is to shine a light on when and where
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they do this crap. They work in the shadows. All of these deals
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are done in dark alleys, back where somewhere, and no one ever hears
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about it because filmmakers are afraid to come forward, or don't want to talk
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about it, or just think that they're just a small, little filmmaker and
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can't possibly take on a big, powerful, predatory distributor. I was literally
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on the phone in a consulting session with a filmmaker yesterday where he told me
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his story about how a predatory distributor had screwed him over and when he confronted
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the distributor about it, the distributor said, and I quote, I'll see
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you in the court of who gives a fuck. Excuse my language, but
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that is a direct quote. The distributor in question was in the UK and
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the filmmaker was in the US. The distributor knew that the chances of the
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filmmaker taking him to court in another country were slim to none, and the
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filmmaker's lawyer advised him to let it go because the cost would be too much
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to take him to court. And the distributor knew this. This crap needs
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to stop. That's why I wanted to give Michael a voice. I wanted
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to give him a platform so he could share his story with thousands and tens
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of thousands of filmmakers that listen to this podcast and watch my videos and read
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my blog posts. For so long, Michael fell that he was alone,
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that nobody would help him. And I know that's how a lot of filmmakers
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feel in this world. You bust your ass trying to get your movie made.
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You sacrifice, you scrape and claw your way to the finish line to
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get your movie made, and then at the end, some predatory bastard comes
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in and steals your movie from you and doesn't pay you and laughs in your
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face. This needs to stop. I personally want to thank Michael for coming
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forward and sharing his story with the tribe. It takes a brave soul to
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do what he is doing. He is not only fighting cancer, he's not
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only fighting for his life. We'll be right back after a word from our
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sponsor, and now back to the show, but he's also fighting to get
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his film back and to receive the money that he is legally owed. This
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episode is brutal and painful to listen to. Both Michael and I believe that
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this episode will help countless filmmakers around the world. Without any further ado,
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here is my conversation with Michael daniel I like to welcome to the show,
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Michael daniel Man, thank you for coming on the show. Michael, Hey,
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thank you all for having me. I wish it was under better circumstances,
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but I saw this very passionate video that you posted up on YouTube telling
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the story of how your experience with a specific distributor who we will be talking
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about soon, and how you were stating that they have taken advantage of you
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and not lived up to their agreements. And I hear those stories on a
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daily basis. I get emails on a daily basis about those things as sad
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as and terif as, so as that stuff is, I get it all
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the time, and I try to help as much as I can, and
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obviously, through what I do at an Ethie Muscle and everything I do on
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a daily basis, I'm trying to get the education and the information out for
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people not to get screwed. But yours was even you had something that I
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had not heard before. You are struggling with cancer currently, and when I
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heard of the distributor was doing something to someone was essentially dying or fighting for
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their life and still doing this, I said, I can't. I can't
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sit back and not allow you to come on the show and spread the word
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about what has happened to you and hopefully that can help other people. So
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before we go down this road, how did you start in the business,
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because I think that's important for people to understand. Yeah, honestly, the
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very first script I wrote was involved with Project Greenlightenment. In fact that Matt
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David ben Affleck bays back in the day that would be I was in season
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two, sir. I was in the opening sequence of season two, Sir
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was the ark City Party and what are the LA parties at the Bowling Alley?
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So yeah, back then, So yeah, my first script was a
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comedy called Misinformation. I never written. I wrote it in word like an
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idiot. So I had to do change everything couse I didn't know else to
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do it. So anyway, that was the start. So I read it
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like this is really funny blah blah blah. Then I started just writing other
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stuff and then I, uh, trigger Street where that Uh yeah, so
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Jerry Street dot com. I start putting scripts up there. Then I started
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getting uh the top three, and then I got a couple of screenplays the
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months and I won something. Then then they had me come on and do
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like an interview about it, and the fifth first tim pages that I'm not
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really a big contest inter inter RB, but I had a script that I
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was really passionate about, douse. I care a lot about civil rights and
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people being treated like human beings. And it's a it's a it's a film
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called A Circle, Circle on the Water, and it's basically a story that
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starts to the Hitlers born and it ends the day Obama was elected. But
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it follows this black family of Stoone Mountain, Georgia trying to build a dare
12:56
get fighting racism in the South, and then they happen to be it like
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all these different places. Anyway, so I wrote that entered a Nickel Fellowship
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with that script, I came in a semifinals without I've been a quarter.
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I've been a quarter files three times in Nichols and Semipolis. Once Dad got
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me, uh introduced to my buddy John Orland because I couldn't afford to go
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to in Tip Pitchfest, so I volunteered that. I got meetings because I
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volunteered in the the cocktail party is shot the show people and people said oh
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yeah, cool, yeah, let's talk. Then I got hired to write
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two scripts ideas I had from him, you know, and it built built.
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I started making short fiund one or two short films and then I was
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like, you know what, I want to make this. But I've never
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had money, I've never had anybody believed in me, family and never.
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I got a lot of friends now who believe in me, and you can
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really see what I'm doing. But I had to go through a lot to
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get to this point. And my buddy Joseph Shelley, who was the executive
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producer, he and I paid for envy him most mostly you know, they
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screwed him out of like nine grand or more, you know. So uh,
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he knew me for a long time. He knew. I hid the
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Pacific Forrest show, you know me documentaries, hiking the Apple Isshore, I
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walked across the American did a documentary. He knew all this. He knew
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if I set out to do something, I would complete it. And he's
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like, hey, man, i just sold this property up in Org and
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I've got an extra eighty ninety thousand I can throw in. If you've got
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a story, you're going to write a script. So I popped out a
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script, moved up there, got it all together, you know, and
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that's how I finally got to the future. So it's like, you know,
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like most filmmakers, it's not giving up. And it took me from
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a project green light to now to get that movie, to get a real
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movie. Mate. I worked with Christopher quite a few projects, and I
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wrote for him a couple of times, and other people I met, oddly
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enough you to do on the Watter project greenlight, So you know, internet's
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being great. So that got me to get gone see dedication man, get
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a movie over the Art. So yeah, that's about you know, that's
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the convinced version. There's a whole lot more stuff. Oh I'm sure I'm
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sure, Yeah, that's definitely the condensed version. Well then tell me,
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so, tell me about your film and how it got made, and how
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what the struggles were just to get this thing, to get the thing to
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where you have it. Hey, again, we could do a condensed version.
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Sure, I'll do it. You can say has enough if I go
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doing all right? So, like I said, I moved to the town,
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got to know all the people who lived in the specific town, Cascade
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Locks, Oregon, and I started looking for locations and stuff, trying to
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make this work, you know, and I wanted to get all the uh
15:13
sorry, I just cast me out. Sorry, it's okay, you know,
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you can cab me out. It's okay, no worse, okay,
15:18
cool, all right, So Cascade Locks, organ blah blah blah, got
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to meet all the locals, found all the locations, I cast it.
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I did a local casting at the best Western there and casket for Oregon folks
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for Portland to come in. But a lot of great people hired a lot
15:33
of great people right there. Was looking for a DP. I told him,
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dude, I was like, dude, but the start of this we
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only had like sixty five thousand dollars that's all we had. And then Joe
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was cool enough to say, all right, I'll throw in a little more
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since you got Lynn Shay. You know, because Mark the DP that I
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contacted, he had done a movie would win before. He's like, well,
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I can't promise you, bro. I was like, all right,
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well, I'll just write her a nice letter. And I wrote her letter.
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She loved the letter, got back on me, talked to me a
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couple of times, and she agreed to read the script. She read it,
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liked the part, and agreed to do it. And I was like,
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hey, this is a low whole troo budget movie. I was like,
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it ain't gonna be like what you're used here. I was like,
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we were doing this. I'm on. Half of my crew had never done
16:07
any kind of film work ever in their life. We had a crew of
16:10
Chris one Lighter who was the ad and strange Bird Adam and that was it
16:15
in this mel was there a couple of days, but we had three people
16:18
doing all of our lights for the first two weeks and we shot for fourteen
16:22
days. We lost a day and a half for specific reason. I'm going
16:23
to get into that Jurama, but so we got it all done. We
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had we missed a couple of scenes, so we had to get everybody back
16:33
a couple of weeks later. So we shot the final bit and then we
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had to get it edited obviously. And at this point I was cutting clips
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with this other kid in both portmant and I was planning to go to AFM.
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That was twenty eighteen, so I was taking clips of the film two
16:49
a FM so I could help, you know, I could try to market
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my film, try to get people look at it. So we was getting
16:56
edited a little bit at that point, but this de kid we had to
16:57
rehire a different editor as a whole difference, you know. So we had
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to do that, and I got the clips to I talked to Gravitas,
17:07
offered me a deal. I in offered me a deal. Lebowski and Shane
17:14
Sewn Shane, they took me out to dinner and offered me a deal.
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I mean everybody I had minimum mgs from forty thousand to about ten, and
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I was going to take the forty I think I think that was that was
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my friend Gianni. He had a friend of his who was at the market
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who liked He said, well, look we can make this back He said
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that we can make this money back because the hook you know, just did
17:32
the stars. I was like, cool, so I did. At that
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point, I got contacted by Phoenix. You know, so so talk so
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so who are we talking about? So for people who don't know who the
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who's the company you're talking about? Phoenix Worldwide Entertainment is the company that I
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made the deal with. And what was They approached me after after I have
17:53
them and I said, hey, look this is the situation. I've got
17:56
these offers. I was like, so and this is the best one.
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That was all you dont want to go that company? Blah blah blah,
18:00
what you're the little wall for? They send me a contract. I thought
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it was kind of fishy, so I sent it to my buddy. He
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works it on an agency. He's I don't have an agent or anything.
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But I said it to him. That's why I wish I had an agent.
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But I said it to him and he's like all right. He said,
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yeah, you need to take this out, take this out, fix
18:14
this, and he did all that. I sent it back to them,
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They approved it, signed it, send it back to me, and I
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signed and and the old deal, as you know with a contract for a
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sales agent who is getting it to distribute distributors. There's a you know,
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there's there's a set of deliverable to you or so so sold on for one
18:32
second. Okay, So Phoenix a Worldwide is a sales agent and not a
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distributor. They're both. They're both okay, so they dance in both and
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the and both thinks okay, great. And then they're based in the UK
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if I'm not mistaken, correct, And they have addresses here for some reason
18:47
which I've noticed too, like the the one of the information things I have
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as an Arizona address, and then there's another it was it Maryland or Delaware?
18:56
Of course? Yeah, yeah, that would that would be for local
19:00
taxes. So yeah, that's why they're in those in those setup. But
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generally they're probably just po boxes or something like that. General, but they
19:07
are UK based company. Correct, Yes, okay, Yes, they handle
19:11
you know, every all kinds of films. Okay, great, So go
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so continue. You said they asked them for deliverables? Wait and what was
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their deal? What was the deal? They offered by one hundred thousand thousand
19:19
so on acceptance several deliberals within three days. Accept the deliberals. We need
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one hundred thousand dollars of pausing in our bank. Okay, great? And
19:26
then also what was the term of do you remember the term meaning like,
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is it five years, a ten year? Is there a marketing gap or
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anything like that? It was seven twenty five thousand dollars marketing gap that was
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supposed to come after the fact that after we got our MG that surely said
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sure, twenty five thousand dollars marketing gap. I did most of the marketing.
19:45
They did a couple of posters, which is great, But I was
19:47
the one dest all over the place. We'll be right back after a word
19:53
from our sponsor, and now back to the sh out yeah so and then
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and then the call and then the okay, so the MG I'm trying to
20:07
I'm just reviewing this. It was a it was a five year deal,
20:10
our seven year deal, twenty five thousand dollars marketing cap and and you were
20:14
supposed get one hundred thousand dollars MG. And your budget for the film was
20:17
how much it was about ninety seven plus post and I had to sell my
20:21
truck for posts because we kept happening to be more deliverables and I have you
20:23
get rid of one editor, so we basically had to start fresh again.
20:26
Okay, I'm there, all right, so let's go into the Let's go
20:27
into the deliverables real quick. Okay, yep, so what that? Uh?
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So I got all the deiliverables done, put them on a USB,
20:36
got their information of Pinewood Studios in the UK, delivered it to the fed
20:40
X when they told us the address they told us to, I got confirmation
20:42
that was there. Then all of a sudden, three orour days later,
20:45
Hey, guys, have you got to drive yet? They're like, well,
20:47
no, it's it's at fed X, which was five miles for Pinewood
20:48
Studios. And they're like, it's over there, the fed X. We
20:52
you know they they haven't delivered yet. I was like, yeah, I
20:55
know. I've told the FedEx International like seven times. They're saying that you
20:57
guys need to get them some tax number that you didn't give them so they
21:00
can give you the package. I was like, I just need one of
21:03
you guys on your way to work the way home, stop by, just
21:06
pick up the two months past. They never fixed it up rist and I
21:10
and at that point that's when I sold my truck, and actually a couple
21:12
of friends. I'd taken loans from them to pay for the for QC,
21:18
for a little extra editing, some music stuff. We needed to pay for
21:21
all this extra stuff. I was borrowing money because I was under the assurance
21:23
that I'll be able to pay everybody back. So no, I would like
21:26
an asshole. So no, no, no, no, it's okay.
21:27
So what was the final cost of all the deliverables for you out of pocket?
21:33
Right well after the about fourteen after the BS. Okay, it should
21:38
have been eight or nine max. But it was about fourteen thousand dollars cash
21:42
out of your pocket. And you were saying, well, sure, I'll
21:45
pay it because I have a guarantee of one hundred thousand dollars going into my
21:48
bank account. Why wouldn't I pay it so I can get this thing up
21:51
and running and let's let's go. Okay. So two months pass, they
21:56
still haven't picked up the thing, which, of course, by the way,
22:00
is delaying their one hundred thousand dollars payment. Oh of course, yeah,
22:03
of course. And so what ended up happening is we had recent another
22:07
drive and also hook them all up. Everybody at Pine Went who worked them
22:11
on a job box file and upload all our duels on a separate job box
22:15
file on top of the USB. And that took for some reason, that
22:18
still took forever for them to look at. And you know, then Rachel,
22:22
I guess one of the employees there, got back said Yep, this
22:23
looks all great. Everything's good to go. I w was great. And
22:26
then as you know now we went back and forth. Now then that was
22:32
in October. So the first one was the July second was and what's funny
22:34
and a funny but in July I was super harridly sick. Alluguest is when
22:40
I got my cans. I stays four colon cancer with mets and long delivery
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and kidneys and I'm doing amazing. I was supposed to be dead last Christmas,
22:45
and like, I think they think I was gonna die because they knew
22:48
I had cancer as soon as they get that draft, because I was horrible
22:51
to you go back and look at my videos in that time. I'm about
22:53
sixty pounds heavier. I lost weight bo like that, you know. But
22:57
my doctor told me was gonna bit, you know, and I did infusions
23:00
you know, for a while. Anyway, so there were situations that came
23:04
up during that time too. As a guys, I'm going through some really
23:07
horrible stuff here. Man. I was like, I need to be able
23:10
to pay for mets. I have to set up interest. I don't have
23:11
that yet. I don't have a place to live up here yet. I
23:14
was like, I just moved out of one house because I was playing going
23:15
like a three month pike. That's my plan. I started with Mountain Hood,
23:18
I's gon hikes south and the world fell apart out of nowhere. You
23:22
know, I've been sick, I guess for a long I've made the whole
23:25
movie with stage four cancer. Didn't know I've made a movie. You know
23:26
that. Well, I was sick, so again put up all that fun
23:30
stuff. So yeah, I was begging them, and I have emails and
23:33
messages that say, dude, will definitely send you something to help with that.
23:37
They will work out this other stuff. And that happened five six,
23:38
seven, eight, nine times. My power has been turned off twice.
23:42
I can show you my bak. I think my bank account has seven eight
23:45
dollars in it right now. I live on because of this. I live,
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you know, because I know I seem pretty hyper inactive. And I
23:51
am, you know, cause, like I said, I try to take
23:52
care of myself, but I do ten minutes a door. I'm laying down
23:56
because I'm so winded, and I'm trying to build that back up, and
23:57
I'm doing really good. But they're you know, every problem I've had.
24:02
On top of the stress of dealing with the cancer, deal with not being
24:06
paid, I'm dealing with my buddy Joe, who put all his money to
24:07
I'm giving them another buddy, Scott handed me six grand just because he's an
24:11
awesome human being. You know, I paid him back three out of the
24:14
first because all I tried to pass many people back as like dude, Ryan,
24:17
wait, and I've left us with nothing again. You know, it's
24:18
like I wrote a script. I got paid a little bit for that because
24:22
Joe's awesome. You know, you just caare me on that. But basically,
24:23
two and a half years of work, I got nothing. These assholes
24:26
had their name above my film beingach World writer Table presents above my name.
24:32
All right, strive, Okay, Okay, So so let's so let's take
24:36
it back for a second. All right, So now they have they have
24:38
been pushing and pushing and pushing for you to to get you money, any
24:44
sort of money, any sort of money whatsoever. They've been it's coming,
24:47
it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, and you've already delivered. So
24:49
you've now you've now abided by the agreement, you've delivered it, they've approved
24:56
those deliverables, and now you're waiting for their part of the MG, which
25:00
is what they're supposed to pay according to the contract. So it's now been
25:06
how many months since the moment you delivered to the point where they well,
25:08
well, it's actually up to now today today. Yeah, so it's still
25:12
that year all over here. So a little over a year and they still
25:18
haven't paid you the MG that they promised you according to the agreement. Okay,
25:22
So I just want everybody to understand that everyone listening, just because it's
25:26
on paper doesn't in an agreement, doesn't mean one hundred percent that they're going
25:33
to do it. You've gotta be careful about who you're walking into these deals
25:37
with because you just don't know what the scenario is and a lot of times
25:41
the distributor might have the goodest, the best intentions of the world, but
25:45
something like COVID hits and all their money drives up and now they're screwed.
25:48
So there's other which I'm not saying that's this case, but it's just the
25:52
world. It's just business. It happens in every business. But this is
25:56
a different, different scenario. Okay, So they haven't given you any money
26:00
and they're and they're just constantly just kind of gaslighting you. So it's all
26:06
coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's
26:07
coming. All right, So what's the next? So do you go after?
26:11
What's what happens to your movie? Because the movie gets released, right,
26:15
yeah, and I didn't know it it be sold. And anybody who
26:18
know there's anything about this business knows if you're a filmmaker, you deal will
26:21
sell his agency, distributors, and they are both supposed to come to you
26:23
and say, hey, this is a situation. We have some mind of
26:26
territory that wants to buy your film. Would you agree to this? Would
26:30
you sign this so we can sell it so we can get paid and you
26:32
can get paid. And then the filmmaker says yes, sir, No,
26:36
that never happened. What happened was Lynn Shag always say hey, congratulations,
26:38
I hear they're doing a screening of your movie, and in LA thought little
26:42
you know the at the CEMA Cleopatra knows Little Streetings And I was like what.
26:45
I was like, wait what and so then I, you know,
26:48
then me and DJ got on the phone like wait, you sold the movie?
26:49
Who'd you sell it to? Then he found out I was sold to
26:52
Cleopatra. Then we were trying to get out a receipt like hey man,
26:56
let us so real quick clip so, because I want to make sure everyone
27:00
keeps you know, stays with the story. So Cleopatra is another distributor who
27:06
purchased the rights two year film from Phoenix Entertainment Worldwide. Yeah, here's more
27:11
All Entertainment. Yeah, they're a lost Angeles. They're a great and I
27:15
want to say that student make sure everyone understands Cleopatra Entertainment Tim those guys,
27:18
they have been awesome to me. This is not their fault. What they
27:22
did their business people. They were offered a product, they paid the price
27:25
for the product, and they put the product out. The people who are
27:27
fucking me are the people who kept thirty percent of my money. And on
27:32
top of that, you know another almost eighty grant. So well, by
27:37
the way, what was the deal. That was the one thing I forgot
27:38
to ask you about the deal? What was their percentage? It's not thirty
27:41
percent? Was it a a seventy thirty? I didn't look at that contract,
27:44
you know. I think it's I think it was what was it like
27:47
ten percent? Five percent? Honestly, God, I have to look at
27:49
that front page again. I don't have it in front of me. Okay,
27:52
okay, but it's but it wasn't thirty percent. No, God,
27:55
no, what I'm saying, DJ, my buddy DJ. He was,
27:57
you know, helps him with like this kind stiffs shining, get the night
28:00
in them too. He said, that's loadagris. He said they should have
28:02
kept two grand, three grand, Max Max. He said, all they
28:04
do is sign a paper. They ain't done anything, you know. And
28:06
he said, they didn't even tell you they did the deal. Literally,
28:08
I had to find out later and then beg and pleading. I got to
28:11
the point, and I'm gonna be honest with you, bro. I was
28:14
pleasant for a time, and I have used very very very choice words and
28:18
emails to these people, and I have no problem saying that. I'll admit
28:22
it. I'm a nice guy. I'm a loving, good human being.
28:25
But if you step on me, I'm gonna step back, you know,
28:26
And it's not right. And I again, I own up to anything bad.
28:30
I ever said anything fold or I ever said in an email, because
28:33
I'd had it. You know, you get to a point, you snap,
28:36
man. These people still don't care. They and I snapped because they
28:38
started just ignoring the emails. They wouldn't even respond. I haven't heard from
28:41
Michael Cohen in probably eight or nine months. M No, of course,
28:45
of course, so just blocked us all all right, So okay, so
28:49
now your film has been purchased by Cleopatra Entertainment and they release it. They
28:55
release it, and they have and from what you were you discovered by the
28:57
way you had to find out we outside of these people. So all the
29:03
information that you're getting about what Cleopatra has done is from Clearpatra themselves or other
29:07
people that you've gotten this information from, but not from Phoenix. Okay,
29:11
of course. So they purchased, from what you've told me, they purchased
29:15
English speaking rights, well, Phoenix Worldwide purchased universal rights. Correct, But
29:22
then but what I was told was they purchased domestic rights. But then what
29:29
I found out later was it supposedly purchased all English speaking territories, which is
29:33
a bunch of crap. And I I had no idea about that. I
29:37
would agree to something like that because that's market that you can make more money
29:41
off. And that's of course it's huge. That's huge markets that you're just
29:45
giving away. So all right, and do you do you mind saying how
29:48
much you they paid for that those rights. We'll be right back after a
29:52
word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Nothing, well,
30:02
no, no cliffs. Oh they paid twenty It was supposed to be
30:06
thirty five thousand, told that's what they gave those guys, and then they
30:08
sent us only twenty five without telling us how much. Deals. I never
30:11
even heard the deals for. I just knew we were getting paid me.
30:14
I had to argue back and forth to give that. But you got so
30:17
Phoenix did send you twenty two to five off of this deal. But they
30:21
still have never paid you any of the MG at all. And that that
30:25
took months and months and months and months too. That was a battle.
30:27
Oh, it wasn't like a badge go check the showed up. You actually
30:30
had to fight for that. I over and over phone bank they did,
30:34
the bank they used, denied they sent the transfer. I kept asking for
30:37
a track and of her confirmation banking both they wouldn't send. They would talk
30:41
to me. They don't have that, we don't have. So you discovered.
30:42
So I just want to create the timelines for filmmakers listening. You find
30:47
out from Lyndhay, who, by the way, if everyone doesn't know who
30:49
Lynchay is, can you tell them what Lindchay has been in everything? Something
30:52
about Mary did every other movie, King Pinned Jesus. She's been in a
30:56
thousand things, all right, So she's a very well known actress. So
31:00
Lyndsha calls you and says, hey, congratulations. So then because of that
31:04
information, then you reach out to Cleopatra and and they're cool with you about
31:11
it, and they start giving you all this information. Then you reach out
31:14
to Phoenix and going, hey, where's my money? And now the beginning,
31:19
well, from that process of the phonest phone call about Cleopatra to the
31:22
point where you got your twenty two five, how long did that take?
31:27
Months? Months? And it was just funding and beating up and emails and
31:30
calls and just I've seen amounts of time and being told that I was a
31:36
bad person for getting mad at him for doing this and stuff like that,
31:40
and that I was wrong for saying they're stealing my money and this, and
31:42
that they told me I was a bad person more than once, more than
31:45
once for saying that, Wow, that's why this man. I can't.
31:48
I can't deal with this anymore. I can't, wow, brother, And
31:52
people need to know and people will find out. So, but yeah,
31:56
you're the bad person for asking for the money that you're owed, in addition
32:00
to the money that the one hundred thousand dollars that they never gave, So
32:02
they they've renigged on their agreement with you, or they've never they just never
32:07
paid you, and then they're upset with you because then you call them out
32:10
on a deal that they sold your movie and never it told you about it,
32:14
which is also I'm assuming part of your agreement that you're told when something
32:17
is sold, or at least even told that you're going to be sold or
32:21
should I sell it? Yep, oh god, okay, all right,
32:24
So you get the twenty two to five and then you're still fighting to get
32:29
that, and that took it. So you got twenty two five, great,
32:31
fantastic it's some money. Fantastic And I'm sure when they sent you that
32:36
check, they're like, are you happy now? No, Robbie actually put
32:42
in one of the emails, this is the end of this whole thing or
32:44
something like that. There, No, it's not. This is the end
32:46
of this whole thing. So they've never did you did you keep bringing up
32:52
the one hundred thousand dollars they owed you? Well? Did? I said,
32:54
have emails with a contract in it? And they what do they do?
32:58
What do they say? Completely? They don't say anything nothing zero?
33:02
Yeah, man, exactly, every now and the name. They're all blaming
33:06
each other this point, and that's true. Michael's blaming he's blaming them.
33:08
This guy says he doesn't work at the company, bore. This guy said
33:12
they made the deal without it. This guy, it's a bunch of bullshit
33:14
con man, that's all they are, you know. Wow, And I
33:17
want to I also want to clarify something just so we so everybody's aware.
33:22
I did a little research on Michael and Phoenix and these guys. Can you
33:28
tell the story from what I saw my research? They had issues with mel
33:31
Gibson. Correct, well, can you tell that story? What I know
33:37
all I know is I found that out later. I did research because I
33:39
was getting pissed, and I started finding stuff about the guy and the other
33:43
guy. But it was mainly it was some kind of stealth something as some
33:46
film company that they put together and they raised millions of dollars some different investors
33:51
to make a movie called Mary Magdalen. And what I gathered from that was
33:54
that the movie was never made. Mel Gibson had never agreed to be involved
33:58
in the movie. He didn't even know anything about it, and they were
34:00
just pulling in lots of money the go and supposed he wasn't involved. But
34:02
I see a court case where he was banned from doing business in the UK
34:06
for a decade or something like that, and he's doing this deal. So
34:09
maybe he's breaking the little run and he doesn't know it. So there's definitely
34:15
some there's some smoke here. There's definitely some smoke here. Okay, So
34:22
all right, so now where So basically, you you're at the end of
34:27
your rope. You you're dealing with fighting for your life because you have cancer,
34:34
and you're still struggling just to get paid the money that you're owed.
34:38
Essentially, what who owns like, so, now you can't get the rights
34:44
back to your movie if you tried, because Cleopatra has them right, they
34:47
had to mess with. We need to to talk, all of us need
34:50
to have to talk. I try to call him a couple of times like
34:52
this. They know the deal, They've been included a couple of emails.
34:54
They know the shady shit that's going on. So wait, hopefully they little
35:00
stand up for the right thing. You mean clear Patrick you're talking about Yeah,
35:04
I don't want to dragon violence in but I will tell you this clip.
35:07
Patrick is a conglomerate or a part of Sony, which is The Orchard
35:09
ten ninety one. Oh yeah, the first day when I posted that video
35:14
bitching about phenis worldwide. Yeah, guess what a copyright claim on my fucking
35:17
video the Orchard? Why because that opening song, which is off eyemovie?
35:25
If I claim, mommy, how about that? What a bunch of dickbacks?
35:29
Really, it was the right after I get in them. So and
35:34
that's their company that owns you know, I don't know, I don't know
35:37
who knows, man, but you know, interesting, interesting. So I
35:40
told me that I need to be go. You shouldn't do this because it
35:43
could hurt your career in the future. And I say this again. People
35:45
who do this to people I don't want to work with. I would never
35:50
want to work with them. If you back people who do this kind of
35:52
shit up, I don't want to work for you either. I mean,
35:52
you know what I'm saying. Anybody who backs up the horrible stuff these people
35:57
did, it's not okay. And like you said earlier, it happens all
36:00
the time, and people just ignore it right like it doesn't happen. And
36:01
then most people can't fight it, or they just give up after a few
36:05
months. I ain't that guy, you know. And that's the thing.
36:07
It's they weren't expecting to fight. So this is the thing. This is
36:10
the This is the problem I see in general. And I'll get on my
36:14
soapbox for a second. The system is broken. The system needs to change
36:19
the system of distribution for films and compensating filmmakers to film producers, even other
36:24
distributors in this chain, because a lot of times smaller distributors are in the
36:30
same boat as filmmakers, because then they'll sell to a bigger distributor who screws
36:34
them out, which in turn screws out to the filmmakers, so there's multiple
36:37
people in this chain. The system has not been designed to help you or
36:43
to help they're just not bill it. The system has not, never was
36:47
designed to help filmmakers since the days of Buster Keaton and Chaplain. I mean,
36:53
that's just you know, how many times have we heard the term Hollywood
36:57
accounting? Yeah, I mean how many times we've heard all the distributor screw
37:00
to me? I mean it's the equivalent of the casting couch and toil the
37:05
me too movement, the casting couch, which was a punchline like oh,
37:08
she got the part because she had to go on the cast to couch,
37:10
or he got the part because of this. It was part of business as
37:15
usual until someone stood up and the movement stopped, so this kind of bullshit
37:19
wouldn't happen anymore. And I feel that this has to happen in our side
37:22
of the business because in many ways it's just it's I hate to use this
37:28
term, but it's like a financial raping of filmmakers. I mean, look
37:31
at the stuff you're going through and how much struggle that you went through to
37:37
make your film, and you sold your car and you're you know, you're
37:39
almost homeless, you're dealing with cancer, you've you've taken loans out, and
37:45
you're and by the way, your story is insanely horrible. But I've heard
37:51
other stories of people completely becoming desolate, like just going like moving, like
37:55
fifty year old men and women moving back home because they lost everything because they
38:01
trusted a distributor or trusted an MG, or trusted that this or you know
38:07
whatever. It needs to change. And that's why I wanted to have you
38:10
on the show to kind of share your story so people really get this,
38:15
man, that this is not BS. You know, and I know you
38:20
know this as well as from what I did last year with distribber when I
38:22
broke that story and what happened with that, and that's still going on,
38:27
and I after the new year there there will probably be some updates. I'll
38:30
just leave it at that on that scenario. But it's this is this is
38:37
wrong, man, This is absolutely wrong, and it's it needs to stop.
38:42
And now, by the way, it's getting tougher for anybody to make
38:46
money in the business. COVID has changed the whole game completely and now the
38:52
pressure is starting to be applied on this system that was broken before COVID.
38:57
So now guess who's gonna get screwed. All the filmmakers are going to get
39:02
screwed more and more and more and more, and there's going to be more
39:07
more companies that are going to do with this kind of these kind of shenanigans
39:10
because either they have to or because they want to, you know. And
39:15
and again I'm sorry. This all started pre covid. Yeah, and this
39:20
all started pre COVID. So all right, So, by the way,
39:22
I heard that your video caused a little bit of, you know, a
39:25
little havoc and it has how many times has it been seen so far?
39:30
Like six hundred? I think is more in six yeah, six hundred.
39:35
It will probably get a couple more hits by the time we're done. You're
39:37
good. But but didn't somebody reach out to you from Phoenix? Oh yeah,
39:44
yeah, they reached out to me. They're like, hey, if
39:45
you'll take those videos down, we'll give you thirty thousand dollars of our personal
39:49
money right now to take all the videos down, and then we'll pay you
39:52
the rest or whatever we can at first of December. We'll be right back
39:57
after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show no first.
40:06
It was the first of the year, and I was like no.
40:07
They're like, okay, well we'll give you three thousand doll they will give
40:09
you more of the first of December. I was like no. I was
40:12
like, what I would like. I don't want less. I don't want
40:15
money as a favor. I don't want any I don't want to freaking whatever.
40:17
I want you to pay. What's in the contract, what you o
40:20
list, what you took, that's it. None of this would be going
40:23
on if they are the contract. They just want the otis I'll be working
40:27
on another film right now. I would not be doing this shit, you
40:30
know it, because I can't stop until this is handle. I can't move
40:32
on until this is handled. They moved on, they're fucking other people and
40:36
taking their money. You know, I have this. I haven't moved on
40:38
and I've been I'm glad you reached out because I've been doing this by myself.
40:42
I had nobody to help me with this, you know, and you
40:45
know, if I if my platform can help get the word out on stuff
40:51
and educate filmmakers about what's going on in our industry, that's what I do.
40:54
And again, when I heard your story. I had to, had
40:58
to. I wanted to shine a light on this because I just wanted to
41:00
like this is come on, dude, the dude's got cancer. I mean,
41:05
I mean, like, come on, man, like just a little
41:09
bit human, just not a lot, just a little bit human. And
41:15
even if like look even I's like, look, we can't pay you one
41:16
hundred thousand the way we promise you. Can we pay you ten grand a
41:20
month? Can we pay you five grand a month? Can we pay you
41:22
something until we're paid off because we're having struggles. There's conversations, man,
41:27
there's something that could be done if they truly cared about helping you or Oh
41:32
the problem was they sent me that confirmation from the bank. They showed us
41:37
what they paid us and what they The mistake they made was they included their
41:39
balance, so I sow they had my money. They just opted to not
41:43
pay it. Oh she had Frost Bank. It shows their accounts like sixty
41:47
seven dollars or something, and they sent me twenty two and they would be
41:51
thirty five. So it's there. It's on painter, it's right there that
41:53
they fucked me. And it's like, you had the money, you could
41:57
have done the right thing right away. You didn't just for the domestic deals,
42:00
noddie, and I told them that at that point it's like, Jay,
42:02
if you can pay us for the domestic deal for now, we can
42:05
work out the other later, you know. And no one wanted to do
42:07
that. That you want to ignore everything and not pay anybody, you know,
42:09
sick it is. It is unfortunate that this this continues to go on
42:14
in our industry. And I want filmmakers to be really just aware that this
42:19
is the way business has done a lot of times. Unfortunately. You know,
42:22
predatory distributors are out there uh and doing business uh and hurting filmmakers on
42:30
a daily basis all around the world. And and you know when we when
42:35
this gets released, AFM is going around the corner. Uh it comes,
42:38
it comes out, you know, and can the Cannle Film Market, Berlin,
42:42
Mipcom, all of these. You know, there there are these kind
42:45
of predatory distributors out there doing this kind of business. So in all honesty,
42:52
you know, when you sign a deal with a company overseas, it's
42:58
really difficult for you to do anything, am I Rother. So like let's
43:01
say you want to, you know, put a legal case against them.
43:07
You got to hire an attorney in England to take them to court in England,
43:13
right, they do no pay, no pay, no fee attorneys there.
43:16
And what I don't even contact. What they've done is an offense and
43:22
you can get prison time they've done in the UK. It's a it's a
43:24
prison terms offense. It's not a it's not a yipfand or butt. And
43:30
these people contact and be like, yeah, you know you might want to
43:31
show them this and made it one of it straight out their accounts. But
43:34
of course that's when they called me too, after I said daddy or I'm
43:37
sorry, that's when they contacted built a three is out of dollars after send
43:39
that little little note that's really three thousand dollars. So they're trying to hush.
43:44
It's like a payoff to basically to to to take it off. Right.
43:50
And they didn't disagree with you right in the email. They didn't like,
43:52
they didn't say you're absolutely lying. We've paid you all our money.
43:55
They didn't say that, did they. And now that they can't stit Nope,
44:00
right, they were just showing they're just showing you up. They're trying
44:05
to shut you up. That's hard. It's yeah, well it's gonna get
44:08
harder, that's for sure. That's it's gonna get harder. I Michael Man,
44:15
I so let me ask you a question, man, because I'm just
44:19
so upset about this and I just holding back as much as I possibly can.
44:25
What do you want to happen? So if if they're going to see
44:30
this and they're going to hear this, that I can promise you, what
44:34
do you want to happen now? At this point, man, I don't
44:39
want to get all dark, but no, no, no, okay,
44:43
okay, let's let's okay again, hold on, Let's let me let me
44:45
rephrase the question because I could see where this is going. What what would
44:50
you like to happen in regards to your film getting paid and moving on with
44:55
your life? Well, what I would like is Phoenish Worldwide to pay me.
45:01
I told them they already took it off their site just recently. Again,
45:05
they had them on the AF and page yesterday for sale. Bad get
45:08
gone on the AF page, Stuart silly, and I send them Jonathan walk
45:13
in the rest of my email saying get my Dad movie off your page.
45:15
Talking to Phoenix was like, Johnathan, this is my movie. They have
45:17
no right and they took it off like that. But I was like,
45:20
they're still doing it, and they're still doing it. Well, what I
45:22
would like to happen is my buddy Joe to get his money. I need
45:25
to get enough money to get my fucking truck back for God's sakes. I
45:28
don't care about the risk. Man. I love doing this, so I
45:30
don't like best part of it, but I love doing it, you know.
45:31
I love the process. I love the people. And now I want
45:34
to say that too real quick before get anything else the film get gone,
45:37
man, my cast and crew. I love those people very much. We
45:39
accomplish something that's really hard, you know, we and I just this has
45:44
another to do with any of those people. So that's very important that everyone
45:46
knows as well. They're those people help me accomplish a dream and it means
45:50
more to me than anything in the world. So I want to get that
45:52
out too, you know. That's that's super important to me. So but
45:54
yeah, those other guys are dicks, So you just basically you basically just
46:00
at this point in the game, want them to live up to their agreement.
46:04
Pay you the one hundred thousand dollars that they owe you, and and
46:07
and then at the end and then go away and just that's it, and
46:10
they can live. They could go off and live, and you can go
46:14
off and live. I don't know. I don't. I don't want to.
46:15
I don't want them to call off the Live successful. I want them
46:17
to never get to buy another film. I don't. I don't want them
46:20
to ever get access to them the project. Okay, you know I've already
46:23
I have stepped in have that. People call me and ask my advice,
46:28
and I say, don't make your decision based on what I tell you,
46:30
but I'll tell them my story and then I make the decision. And I
46:34
have a feeling both of those films did not get picked up by Phoenix Wild
46:36
Lot of Entertainment, and that will continue as well, you know, because
46:38
I'm gonna be honest. I'm not gonna downtrod anybody. I'm not gonna fami
46:42
anybody. I'm not gonna liable anybody. I'm gonna be honest, because that's
46:45
bad enough. The truth is fucking horrible. So right, this is and
46:49
this is the truth. This is the truth based on the paperwork and the
46:52
and all the stuff that you have and the agreements and and bank them from
46:57
the seats and all the stuff that you've been laid out, And we're gonna
47:00
also be putting in the show notes, uh an article that you're writing detailing
47:05
a lot of this stuff with with collaborating, corroborating paperwork to dock everything up
47:12
that you're saying on our site as well. So if anybody wants that,
47:15
I'll leave that in the show notes and I'll let you know where to go
47:17
get that and and read that information. Because man, all right, so
47:24
yeah, because I I I understand a lot of people are gonna stay to
47:29
start reaching out to you, and they're gonna if they they're gonna look up
47:31
these guys and your name is gonna probably pop up. I've had that happen
47:36
to me. I've had people look up a certain company and and then and
47:42
then my my podcast shows up. Like if you type in the word distribber
47:45
I have, I was like the number one search. I was the number
47:52
one and number two planks on Google for distriber for the longest time until the
47:57
l a time, until the La Times picked up the story and then they
47:59
became nonumber one. But I was still a story about me. Deally what's
48:01
the strength. Yeah, yeah, you brought it to it, man,
48:04
that's that's the thing. You've got it out there, that's the key to
48:07
get it all. Yeah, faces problem in this industry. We have to
48:09
do this kind of thing, you know, and we've got to shine the
48:13
light. Yeah. None of us are perfect human beings. No one's perfect.
48:15
We all make mistakes. I understand that, and I want to forgive
48:19
people if they say, hey, look we fucked up. I'm sorry,
48:22
because I've had to do that. I was like, look, I've made
48:22
a mistake. I'm sorry. You can't get better, you can't fix problems,
48:27
you can't move on unless you're able to do that. And they need
48:29
to do it to a lot of people. At least four or five people
48:31
I know that they fucked over. So you know, it's I think that.
48:36
I think the thing that a lot of these uh kind of distributors or
48:42
just generally predatory distributors in general, they like to live and work in the
48:47
darkness. They don't want light shine on what they do. They don't want
48:52
transparency. They don't want to see what's going on behind the scenes. They
48:55
don't want you to see. They don't want information to get out there.
48:58
They don't want to educate filmmakers about what cross collateralization is and not putting on
49:05
a marketing cap and locking up your film for ten years plus and you know
49:12
you're not getting paid. They don't want people to know what this stuff is
49:15
because that gives them power. So I feel it's my mission and my purpose
49:22
to shine is much light on what they do in this business so everyone can
49:28
see it, because that's the only way our business is going to be able
49:30
to grow, because at the end of the day, if we keep screwing
49:34
over the content creators, we're not going to be able to keep making content.
49:38
And if we can't make content, there is no product. And by
49:42
the way, a lot of newer generation, younger distribution companies are figuring that
49:49
out. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back
49:59
to the show. And they're not all about like the the one off.
50:04
Let me steal as much money as I can from these guys, and you
50:07
know, they're like, let's build a partnership. Let's make sure that you
50:12
can do more of this, because the more product you can bring to me,
50:15
the more money I can make, the more money you can make,
50:16
and that's the way it should be. It shouldn't be this kind of predatory.
50:22
Let me screw you for as much as you can, because there's another
50:23
twenty films sitting behind you, and right now that might be the case.
50:28
But I promise you if you keep screwing this up and the information continues to
50:30
get out there, I actually showed like my book to a few people who
50:34
are outside the business, and I have the like, I have like four
50:36
or five chapters on distribution and all the craziness, And they said, why
50:40
would anyone do this? Why would you? Why would you get this is
50:45
not a business. It's it's it's it's different. We're carnival folks, like
50:51
I always say, we're carnies. Absolutely, I have a barker, that's
50:53
for sure. We are. We are carneies. A man, I'm agity
50:59
party. But but Michael Matt, I do. By the way, how
51:01
are you doing with your with your your ear your cancer? And how what's
51:06
the prognosis? If you're only asking if anybody here is watching it isn't actually
51:09
interested. I've been if you I could talk about this, it's cool.
51:14
November twenty first, last year, I stopped taking keyboard infusion, so it
51:17
almost killed me. I started to be blood working stuff in this little thing
51:20
here in my chest. But I stopped because it always killed me. I
51:22
was died in hospital, and I decided to score and show to see these
51:27
and thacs, and I swear to God on my soul, since November,
51:31
I stopped that. In January, I stopped the feel So January of last
51:34
year, I've had no pharmaceuticals at all. I've had only oils and tinctures,
51:37
and my doctor's blown away. My tumors are all shrinking. I have.
51:40
My lungs are a little progression. Kidneys are doing great. The colon
51:45
thing they that's like, it's like it shrinks and grows and shrinks and grows.
51:50
But overall, man, I mean, I feel better than I felt
51:52
in a couple of years. I'm just tired. I get winded. That's
51:54
the worst shore. I'm always trying to work up, you know. But
51:58
I feel better I did when I may get gone. You all got more
52:00
energy. I feel better, you know. Well. Like I said,
52:01
I'm thinner too. I'm eating like salads and fresh fruit, no meat,
52:06
no bread, no no alcohol. You know. About a month good lies
52:09
weed, yeah, fair, fair enough man, Well, listen, I
52:15
I I really wish you nothing but the best, man, and and I'm
52:20
glad you're doing better, and I hope that continues down that road. And
52:24
I know the stress of this BSS probably not helped your condition in the least,
52:32
but I do, really, I wholeheartedly hope that you do continue to
52:37
do well and get out of this and and continue to live a very long
52:40
and make a long and healthy life and make a lot more films that hopefully
52:45
will generate revenue if you partner with the correct uh, the correct distribution partner
52:51
on it or self distributor however you want to eventually go down that road.
52:55
I'm going to ask you a few questions that I ask all of my guests.
53:00
What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to get into the business today,
53:06
I'm afraid to ask, be honest, they'll bullshit. They'll spend your
53:12
time in bars, meet your socialize, but don't get a producer your card,
53:15
never reduce ship. You can run your mouth all you won't, but
53:19
if you don't do the work, you're just running your mouth. I led
53:21
to the Los Angeles for a long time. I ran it to one hundred
53:22
people a day. You've got a produce your card. Never produce jack ship
53:24
except the bust ta get home. If you're willing to suffer, you can
53:29
do it. If you care, if you're honest with yourself, out of
53:31
your art, you can do it. If you're just full of shit and
53:34
you're trying to get a lot of ticket, don't waste your time, man,
53:36
because you're you're you're you're wasting everybod else. It's time too. If
53:37
you love the work, if you love creating, create fair enough. Now,
53:42
what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in
53:44
the film business or in life. Uh? So many people that you love
53:49
and trust the most of the ones that fuck you over the worst. Oh
53:52
that's a rough one. That's a that one. I mean, I've got
53:55
a lot of great lessons too, But I'm just saying, you know,
53:58
that's that's that's it's a it's a sad fact. Can you know in fact?
54:00
And then as inclosed people you're bringing in to work on a film and
54:02
it inclose people at home, you or whatever. You know, there's it's
54:07
just important. And I don't mean that a negative way any way. I'm
54:12
sorry, it is a fairly negative convert and the and the meeting behind it
54:17
though, is that people that care about you a lot will give you information
54:22
that will instill fear in you and make you not go after anything correct they
54:28
do. That's the part about that I don't I'm not insuliding people love me,
54:30
because I love them too. But the point is that people that love
54:34
you and shows you want to protect you, and they will stop you from
54:37
being a filmmaker. My family, my entire life. I fought my family
54:39
to my mom, and they were both dead up until five years ago.
54:43
It was still a waste of time, all the stuff, even though I
54:45
was making money and getting stuff doing to my mom. It's a huge waste
54:49
of my life and I had to fight, unfortunately everybody, my whole life.
54:52
It's called It's the thing I love more than anything. It had.
54:54
I I'm not saying we'll have things happen at the right times, you know,
54:59
so it that's all a point. So yeah, I'm not insulting love
55:01
and trust. I'm just saying the people who do love and trust you will
55:05
protect you, and that can really hurt you sometimes instead of letting you you
55:08
know you're a Peacock. You gotta flood and fly, let him fly.
55:12
Pecodcast this I completely understand. I think every filmmaker whoever turned to their parents
55:17
and said, hey, I want to go to film school, I'm going
55:20
to be a filmmaker. Not out of ten times that's generally not probably gonna
55:22
be a good conversation. I you know, my father and my parents didn't
55:25
understand it, but I was lucky enough that they supported me. Whether they
55:30
believe that or not, they supported me, but it is. It is
55:32
a converse. I understand completely where you're coming from now. And three of
55:37
your favorite films of all time, Sir Purple, Shallow Graves, and the
55:45
Blues Brothers. God, what the heck of a combination? Man? I
55:47
like that. That's a makes me cry to this day. Yeah, when
55:52
when Saley, when Danny Glomer's walked across that Shillowe in the back and those
55:57
cuture, dude, I started thinking about it. I was a c because
56:00
it's the red the level of redemption that has to come. And then the
56:04
preacher's daughter or you know, see yeah, coming back to church, Holy
56:07
Christ Man. There's so much about that movie that's so much beauty. You
56:09
know, That's why I love it because it's true. It's about pain,
56:13
it's about life, it's about all the ship we go through, you know.
56:15
So yeah, Blues Brothers obviously for a main reasons shallow. Most people
56:19
wait to know that movie. You know, it's you and Marga way back
56:22
in the day. Oh I remember, yeah, yeah, it's his name.
56:24
Oh god, one hundred and twenty seven hours. Uh Boil, Danny
56:27
Boil. Yeah, yeah, Danny Boyle, Danny Boyle. Yeah, I
56:30
love that. That was I was in I was in film school when that
56:32
came out, So of course every all, all of my classmates and I
56:36
went to go see that. We're like, oh, this is amazing.
56:38
A roommate now exactly. And then where can people find more videos? Because
56:45
I hear you're going to be posting more videos, uh and and all the
56:49
stuff that you're doing. Where can people find you, sir? Well,
56:51
if you go to my YouTube page, I guess we can maybe put a
56:53
link in there, but it's I'll put Michael Yeah, okay, we'll do
56:55
that. But my websites, you know, get gone themovie dot com.
57:00
You can check that out. You know, it's at Amazon, it's on
57:01
Google Play, it's on iTunes. It's all over the place. If you
57:04
look Forget Gone, you'll find it. It's you know, it's a low
57:07
budget movie. It's it's got hard, it's got comedy. There's just not
57:09
a lot of gore. There's no no, there's language. You know,
57:13
it's fun, it's it's there's a lot of humor because I'm a kind of
57:15
a darkly humorous person. So some people don't know if they should laugh or
57:19
not. What you should fair, fair enough, man, Michael Man.
57:22
Again, I really thank you for your honesty, your bravery, for coming
57:27
out publicly with this story, and uh, and and just trying to shine
57:30
a light on this side of the business, and and just uh hopefully this
57:35
story and this this episode and and everything that you're doing will continue to help
57:39
filmmakers avoid a lot of the pitfalls that you've fallen into. And I applaud
57:45
your bravery for not only this but what you're dealing with on a personal level.
57:49
Man, So thank you so much for doing what you do. Brother.
57:51
I appreciate it. I can kind of help everybody else. It means
57:54
a lot. We need it. I can't thank Michael enough for being on
58:00
the show and sharing his journey. What he's going through personally and professionally with
58:07
the Tribe and Michae Leno. You felt that you were alone before, but
58:12
you are no longer alone, my friend. This will get out to a
58:16
lot of filmmakers, and I hope that it will help a lot of filmmakers
58:22
and producers out in the world. Like I said before, guys, this
58:27
needs to stop, and the only way it can stop is by people coming
58:30
forward, by people telling their story, by people shining a light in the
58:36
dark crevices of the nasty back alley crap that is done in the film distribution
58:43
space. Like I said, there are many good film distributors, good sales
58:50
agents, good reps out there trying to do business properly, trying to help
58:58
filmmakers actually get paid, actually put their movies out into the marketplace and receive
59:04
an ROI receive a return on their blood, sweat and tears on putting a
59:09
movie together. But unfortunately they are rare, and we as filmmakers have to
59:15
be vigilant to not just hand over our hard work. Are hundreds of thousands
59:22
of not millions of dollars of investment to a predatory distributor or a predatory sales
59:30
agent. Every time I hear a story like this, my heart breaks because
59:36
I'm trying so hard to get this information out into the ether, into the
59:40
filmmaking community. I need your help to get this word out. Please share
59:47
this podcast episode with as many filmmakers as you can. This information, this
59:55
story needs to be heard. We'll be right back after a word from our
1:00:01
sponsor, and now back to the show, and I hope it galvanizes the
1:00:10
community to stop being taken advantage of by predatory film distributors and sales agents.
1:00:22
I will do my part and continue to shine a light on these parasites,
1:00:28
but I am only one voice. I need the help of the tribe.
1:00:32
I need you to get the word out on these podcasts, on these episodes,
1:00:37
on these articles, on these videos that I'm posting. We've done a
1:00:43
lot of good and I know personally, I know that I've helped and you
1:00:46
have helped so many filmmakers not to be taken advantage of to avoid these ridiculous
1:00:53
deals because of the information we are putting out there. But it is not
1:00:59
enough. We as a community need to stand up and say enough is enough
1:01:06
and change has to be made. And we do that with one deal at
1:01:10
a time, we send a message to predatory film distributors that this is no
1:01:16
longer allowed, and if you do screw us, we will talk. We
1:01:22
will shine a light on predatory deals of twenty five years or in perpetuity deals
1:01:30
that don't have marketing caps or abusive terms. It is the responsibility of the
1:01:37
filmmaker to be able to see these con men for who they are and stop
1:01:44
it before you sign on that dotted line. And the biggest weapon we have
1:01:47
is education, to educate ourselves to get the information out. And the second
1:01:52
weapon we have is to talk, to discuss, to share information with other
1:01:59
filmmakers, other p even other low level distributors, smaller mom and pop distributors
1:02:05
that I know of personally who get screwed over by bigger predatory distributors. It
1:02:10
is a rampant, systemic issue in our business and it needs to stop now.
1:02:17
If you want to read all about Michael Daniels's journey and all the details,
1:02:23
look at the emails, look at the proof that he provided, the
1:02:28
documents and some other videos, please I employ you to head over to the
1:02:31
show notes at indie film Hustle dot com. Forward Slash four thirteen and I've
1:02:37
also included the audio from the YouTube video Michael posted that got me to call
1:02:43
him in the first place. It is a very passionate video and I wanted
1:02:47
to include it in this podcast so you guys could hear it firsthand. Hi
1:02:52
guys, all right, so it's almost two in the morning. I got
1:02:54
to get some stuff off by job. I'm so so mad. So just
1:03:00
you know, we have dreams as human beings, and a lot of us
1:03:04
work really hard to attain those dreams, especially when no one is there to
1:03:09
believe in you to help you ever you know, and you struggle and you
1:03:14
strive in your entire life, and you do shit work for it, and
1:03:16
you suffer and you go without, and you give up things, and you
1:03:21
bust your ass and you work so goddamn hard, and you take shit from
1:03:27
so many people who fucking need to punch in the face to accomplish something,
1:03:32
and when you get it done, it's amazing. And you try to get
1:03:37
out there in the world, and then you have people who completely fuck you
1:03:39
and you steal from you and who lie. Phoenix Worldwide Entertainment, Michael Cohen,
1:03:47
Robbie Robi Mofat, Mofitt, what were the fuck you, Manual Morieti.
1:03:52
Those people were involved in this. They made a deal for my film
1:03:58
one hundred thousand dollars minim guarantee. To get that, we had to get
1:04:05
deliverables done and accepted, which we did back in July. Yet they wouldn't
1:04:10
pick the goddamn us be up from the FedEx and UK, so it's sat
1:04:15
there for two months and then had to get reshipped. So anyway, they
1:04:21
got the deliverables, accepted it via the contract. VA agent's a be a
1:04:26
law. I have ta the contract they signed when they bought the film.
1:04:30
They were supposed to within three days of acceptance pay US one hundred thousand dollars.
1:04:34
They did not do it. They made excuses and excuses and excuses and
1:04:38
excuses and excuses and excuses. I sold my fucking truck. I still don't
1:04:43
have a truck. I still have stage four cancer. I've dealt with this
1:04:46
every single day since July of last year, trying to get these motherfuckers from
1:04:54
Phoenix Worldwide Entertainment to do the right thing. I get constant hemos. Oh,
1:04:58
my mama's sick. I was at the hospital. My grandma's here,
1:05:02
this is it. Oh the bank won't transfer. We said it, but
1:05:05
it's not there. It's come. It's fuck you. Fuck you, Phoenix
1:05:14
Worldwide, fuck you, Michael Going, fuck you, Robbie, fuck you,
1:05:16
and Manuel if you guys were in front of me. Oh my god,
1:05:20
Holy fucking shit. I'm trying so long to keep this pup private as
1:05:29
I can. No one will help me. I have ta won't fucking help
1:05:33
me. I'm so mad. I'm so hurt. I put my trust when
1:05:40
I made this movie to start with. I put my love and my trust
1:05:45
in every single person involved, and we made something. We got something done,
1:05:53
and I got it out there. So all that, and I had
1:05:56
Stage four cancer while that was going on, while dealing with that, while
1:06:00
dealing with this now, while trying to get paid for a year. Over
1:06:03
a year, they did a domestic deal with Cleopatria Entertainment, which is marvelous.
1:06:10
I'm so happy my movie's out there and all Amazon and all these other
1:06:12
places. The deal was for thirty five thousand dollars. They gave us twenty
1:06:15
two to five. They didn't even tell us they did the do I found
1:06:18
out about the deal later from someone else. I didn't even know they sold
1:06:21
my movie They didn't even they were supposed to come to me and say,
1:06:26
hey, this is the deal, here's the contract or. Do you accept
1:06:30
this? And I say yes or no? And had I known at that
1:06:33
point that it was all English speaking territories, which is a bunch of horseshit
1:06:38
that I never agreed to, I would never agreed to that. Long story
1:06:43
short, venis Worldwide Entertainment. Fuck you, Emmanuel Michael Robie. You guys
1:06:48
are the worst of the worst. You know what you did. This is
1:06:53
just the beginning. I want to do this every day. I will do
1:06:55
everything I can to destroy your company. You broke my heart. I worked
1:07:01
for a long time. I've been homeless for this. I've been without for
1:07:06
this. I've gone hungry for this. I fought, I followed my family
1:07:11
for this. I stayed. I've lost relationships for this. Fuck you,
1:07:16
fuck you, fuck you. God damn it, man, where's the help
1:07:21
for people like me? Because they can do it to other people. There
1:07:25
are a lot of these fucking companies that do this kind of shit to people
1:07:27
all the time. No one helps. What the fuck? Oh my god,
1:07:31
look them up. Michael Cohen, Phoenix World Entertainment. He fucked Mel
1:07:35
Gibson over or supposedly they say that it happened. It's still you can buy
1:07:39
that. I've found that out later. They're con man, they're scum.
1:07:43
To avoid them. Oh my god, it's what the fuck? I can't
1:07:47
even sleep to dam I'm so mad. Thank you for listening guys. Again,
1:07:55
Please share this episode with as many filmmakers as you can. If you
1:07:59
want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over
1:08:01
to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three forty four.
1:08:05
Thank you so much for listening to guys. As always, keep on
1:08:09
writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to
1:08:13
the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.