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BPS 488: How The Asylum Makes Movies That Actually Make Money with David M. Latt · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four eighty eight.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
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• 1:33
  Speaker 4: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: On this week's show, I have David m Lett. David
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: is the co founder of the Asylum, one of the
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: most prolific independent film studios around. They have won dozens
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: of awards and created such movies as Sharknado, Shirknado two,
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: shirk Nado three, the upcoming Sharknado four, the Fourth Awakens.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: We're gonna talk all about how the Asylum comes up
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: with their ideas and how they market it and how
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  Speaker 3: they make money.
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  Speaker 6: So here we go with David m Less. Hey, David,
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: thank you very much for joining us today.
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  Speaker 5: Oh sure, hey, thanks for having me.
• 2:10
  Speaker 6: My pleasure, my friend. You know, you know so, David,
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  Speaker 6: you know, as you know, the co founder of the Asylum.
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  Speaker 6: You you've produced all these films, you know, you have
• 2:17
  Speaker 6: such a you know a really really long IMDb. As
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: I was looking at, I didn't even know you produced
• 2:22
  Speaker 6: that many movies, So, you know, I wanted to ask,
• 2:24
  Speaker 6: you know, David, you know how did you get started
• 2:26
  Speaker 6: in the film industry?
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: Oh goodness, I lost a beat. Well, I am a
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: very very very boring story about that, which is that
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: I just always made movie. You know, I'm the nerdy
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: kid that back in the seventies Get I'm that old
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: that had a super camera and made a lot of
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: short films and as my wife likes to point out,
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: the Goldbergs, the TV series is my family life, That's
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: exactly it. And just always had a passion for directing, producing,
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: you know, telling stories in this medium. And when I
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: was twelve, I saw Star Wars and that kind of
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: changed my life, going wow, you could actually make money
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: in this business and you know, tell stories in a
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: mass level, and and that kind of just really focused
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: me very cutely to to make movies, which for some
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: strange reason in this life, I won the lottery and
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: I'm allowed to do the things that I love to do,
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: which which I know is very rare and trying to
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: take it head and shove it, but I kind of do.
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: But that's it. I mean, I'm not trying to. I'm
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: not caring cancer and doing important things of just making
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: a movie being very self indulging.
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  Speaker 6: So did you go to film school?
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  Speaker 5: I did. I have a degree so I'm allowed to
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: make movies. I went to a Loyola Murraymount University and
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: graduated there with some kind of degree. Came remember what
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: it was, and I think it was film production something.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: And here I am today.
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: You mentioned permission to make movies, because you know Lloyd
• 4:12
  Speaker 6: Coauflin when I bought his filmmaking DVD set and actually
• 4:15
  Speaker 6: came with a degree from Trouma University, He's just like,
• 4:19
  Speaker 6: just write your name in there. He's like, just right
• 4:21
  Speaker 6: it in with penn and hanging up on your wall,
• 4:22
  Speaker 6: and you can make movies.
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  Speaker 5: Though, I think Lloyd is probably the greatest human being
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: in the world. So yeah, that's I thought. I thought.
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  Speaker 6: You know, I actually had him on the podcast, I.
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: Don't doubt it. Actually had him for dinner a couple
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: of weeks ago. So it's one of those where things like, hey,
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: you hang out together with filmmakers and and you look
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: back and here, yeah, I kind of do. It's really
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: a neat, you know, experience to be able to share
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: those moments with people that you put on a pedestala
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: and admire for so long, and and you'll look at
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: go oh, their friend and Lloyd is his friend and
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: his wife and it's you know, he's he's the real deal.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: He's and toured independent filmmaker, roll filmmaker, really enthusiastic as
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: you know, and you know, genuine just this tweet sweet
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: man that really loves what he does, which is invigorating.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: It was, you know, gives me kind of this renewed energy.
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  Speaker 5: And I think he's like one hundred and three years old,
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: so you know it's like to do that at his age. Crazy,
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: it's crazy.
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: And now you have another story for when when you
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: see him the next time, you could say, hey, remember
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: that shitty podcast we were both on.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they'll say like F and N and I'll go, no, no,
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: it wasn't CNN. It was another one.
• 5:35
  Speaker 6: So the other shitty podcast you are, Yeah, yeah.
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: That one, that one, well yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it.
• 5:42
  Speaker 6: Loud is an absolutely great guy. But Duane, just to
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: go back to, you know, to your career, I wanted
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: to ask, you know, when did you decide that you
• 5:49
  Speaker 6: wanted to start the asylum.
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: It was that busy when I got fired from my
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: day job. So my partner and I, David Ormoley, and
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: I both worked at different UH businesses. He worked at
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: a company called Gillage road Show and I worked at
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: a company college Shumor Multimedia. And I always had a
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: production for that company. And I was there for a
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: couple of years and I got fired and I don't
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: know why. If I was sober, I would have known why,
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: but I wasn't. And so to the say, I still
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: know why. But but and David got fired s at
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: the same time, except his fire fire was much more legitimate.
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: Warner Brothers bought out the company and then went on
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: to produce The Matrix with the Village road Show and
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: you know, they've done everything. But so we kind of
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: were let go at the same time. And so we
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: had previously made a couple of films, like a film
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: every year and a half, and said, you know what,
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: let's let's do this legitimately. Let's get into the and
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: UH and start a company together. We could actually start
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: making movies. So we did that with another partner, Sherry Strain,
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  Speaker 5: who also worked at Village road show. So it's the
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: three of us and we worked out of David's department
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: for the first I don't know, four years, just doing
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: whatever we could. You know, we were young, we needed the
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: money and started, you know, actually releasing art house movies.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: It was our first kind of foray into the into
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: the business side of itn't it. But that was nineteen
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: years ago. That put things in perspective.
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  Speaker 6: So when when you first lost your job, and you know,
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: I'm sure you know you and your partners were sort
• 7:30
  Speaker 6: of sitting around the table, so, you know, discussing what
• 7:33
  Speaker 6: to do, did you just decide, you know, did you
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  Speaker 6: make a list like, hey, this is the resources I
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  Speaker 6: have available now, this is how much money I have
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: and just try to go from there.
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  Speaker 5: No, we're not that smart, you know. We we just
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  Speaker 5: we had we all three of us had a passion
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  Speaker 5: to making movie and we knew that we wanted to do.
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  Speaker 5: And I think had we put together a real plan,
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: it would have we would be a lot more successful
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: now because I think we kind of started around the
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: same time Lionsgate did that they had a plan. So
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: if you want to put things in perspective, that ware
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: things helping could have been but uh, you know, I
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: think Netflix started around the same time too. Uh. It's
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: one of those things of you know, we just wanted
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: to not be homeless, so we just you know, I
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: immersed myself and I'm a workaholic, so I do and
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: and I love maing movies so on on a set.
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: I've done everything and continue to do everything in a
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: lot of ways, and and enjoy every aspect of it.
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: And uh, you know, from catering to boom off, you know, camera,
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  Speaker 5: whatever it is, I've touched it in some particular way.
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  Speaker 5: So you know, it didn't matter what we were doing
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: as long as we were making movies. And initially it
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: was I was I was an editor, so I was
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: cutting trailers and promo things for clients that Ramalley was
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: bringing in. David Ramalley in more of the business side
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: of things, and I'm more of the creative part side
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: of things. Because I always like to say, he finds
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: the money, I spend the money, and we both enjoy
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: what we do. So he would find work and I
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: would do the work, and you know, and that's kind
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: of the way it went. He found he kind of
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: got this great opportunity where his old boss of the
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: Old Road Show started a thing called First Rights, which
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: was being set us in the native country in Australia,
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: first time filmmakers with an exclusive output every month to
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: a one of the largest video distributors in Australia, and
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: they were looking, they were looking for an American partner.
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: So David Ormalley part became that bridge between Australia and
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: America and we created a an output deal with Hollywood Video,
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: which was of the second March chain in America at
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: the time.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: And every month we would release art house movies from
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: first time filmmakers to the tune of about six to
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: ten every single month. That increased to fifteen to twenty.
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: At a certain point we had one hundreds of titles.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: It was a very successful program for about three or
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: four years, and that was what our life was and
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: what got us back into film production is that when
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: we saw the writing on the wall that was kind
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: of waning, we needed to kind of diversify. We went
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: to Blockbuster and started released with Blockbuster, not with First
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: Like they said, look, if you can come up with
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: a film a month, you know, for us to distribute
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: on the horror side of things, the genre, not the
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: art house, will take them. And so we started finding
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: movies that the problem was we were competing in Flying
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: Skate and other big companies that were offering minimum guarantees
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: to filmmakers that we couldn't do. So we couldn't come
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: up with a product. And at a certain point went, well,
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: you know, we're filmmakers, Let's try and find an angel
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: investor to bankroll specific movies for Blockbuster, these cheap horror films,
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: and we did. We found someone to give us I
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: think a half million dollars and that bank rolled the
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: first like ten movies. And by that time, because we're
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: releasing film every single month, it you know, caught up
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: to you know, after about five or six months, it
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: caught up to the investor and to us. We were
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: cash flowing our film. So for the first ten years
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: of our of our business life, we were a cash
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: flow company primarily where money coming in would go to
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: fund the next project going out. And we're still to
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: that degree, some some much to that degree, all though
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: we're a little more financially sophisticated to this point, with
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: all the employees that we have in the product that
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: we bake and everything else, but fundamentally the same kind
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: of business. But yeah, we what I think kept us
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: alive and the doors open is that we were very
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: nimble and very flexible to opportunity to came our way,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: and it was rare that we said no to an opportunity.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: It you know, you just never know where those are
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: going to take you. So, you know, our goal as
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: a good druggie was to always be taking drugs in
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: the sense in the drug being film and you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: just always keep that process going. And that led us
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: into the business that we're in now, and it's not
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: for everybody. Sherry ultimately left the company because she actually
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: wanted to make I guess quality films and saw ourself
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: more you know in the art house world or bigger,
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: bigger shows, which is fantastic, and she left and about
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: twelve years ago and then we brought in a guy
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: named Paul bail. We still know what he does, but
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: he does and you're looking at me right now. So
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: Paul Baale's you to work over SAG for ten years
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: over there and came into the Asylum and became a
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: partner of the Asylum simply because he's just slept with
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: the right people. Because Paul and Romalley bells with friends
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: in Michigan, Michigan also with the same background of making
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: movies when they were young and super great cameras and
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: all that stuff. You know, we all share that kind
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: of thing initial passion. And Paul's been very to be
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: uh valuable to the company. He's the guy who says no,
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: he acts as kind of our THEFO to everything and uh,
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: you know, really regulate how things are done. So you know,
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: that kind of control has really you know, aggressively run
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: the company in very wonderful ways because we're not just
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: out you know, partying and being crazy and wild. We're
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: we're actually being responsible human beings that have a payroll
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: at insurance and and uh, you know he'd made it legit,
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: which is kind of cool. I think his answer really long,
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: don't I Yes, No, I'm sorry, Yes and no. That's
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: it now on.
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: It's a funny side note in Yes and No. I
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: had a friend of mine he interviewed remember Biz Marquy.
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: Well, of course he was in Shark Nado two.
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: It's right, he was, Uh, he actually interviewed him for
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: his podcast and uh and uh he said. Biz literally
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: answered everything with yes or no because my friend shot
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: himself on the floor right at the gate. He first
• 14:17
  Speaker 6: thing he says is, hey, remember you say she's just
• 14:20
  Speaker 6: a friend, and Biz goes yes, because but I've done
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: other things because she's just a friend. And through the
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: rest of the podcast he's just answering yes or no,
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: and Marcaen was like, can you elaborate, and Big was
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: and and Bis was like.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: Well, no, yes or no, and I'm sure I'm sure
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: it did. Was more like yeah, yeah, oh man, So
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: you don't have a figure job.
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: On your IMDb. I know you mentioned that, you know
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: the Asylum. No movie has ever lost money from the Asylum.
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, I wanted to ask you so
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: using that that that struck sure of you know, never
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: losing money. You know, do you write the script with
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: a producer's hat mainly so that you know, like, Okay, look,
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: I don't I'm not going to include things that are
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: just way too outlandish and I can't I can't actually
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: do we we can't actually do or is it or
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: do you sort of do that at the later point, Well,
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: so you're sort of always making sure that the movie,
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: don't sort of get you know what I mean, they
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: go out of control.
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: Okay, so there's a couple things going on there, so
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: it's all too another long answer, so just be prepared
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: and go to the bathroom. I'll just keep talking, which is,
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: if you've ever seen one of our films, we do
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: not limit ourselves with, oh, this has to be four
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: actors in a room talking about you know, the monster
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: outside in the hallway that will never happen. And when
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: people you know try and slictent script or pitch it,
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: it's like, oh, it's a perfect asylum movie. If four
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: guys in a room talking about a monster and you know,
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: the closet, it's like that. It's obviously you've never seen
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: an asylum film because we never go there. I mean
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: we you know, I don't think we've ever had the
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: discussion of you can't do it, which you know, it's
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: part of the charm of the asylum films that you
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: watch because they really go pretty far, you know, with everything, concept, execution,
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: story wide, and you know, it's you can't really contain it,
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: you don't. We're not making a little bunch of film.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: We're just making a big budget film on a budget,
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: so you know, and we'll figure out a way to
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: do it. We have you know, at this point in
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: our careers, we have everything's in house. We have a
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: whole room full of visual effects artists, and we have
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: a whole room of sown designers. We have whole room
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: of editors. They have whole room of everything. So you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: there's nothing that we really can't do. We just run
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: out of time sometimes, so you know, may a little
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: bit cheaper, we may be cutting corners here. There are
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: tricks we do to make it look bigger when it's
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: really not bigger, and so we can't afford it. So
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: we never story wise limit ourselves to anything. And in
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: our in our the only time we ever really felt
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: nervous was doing Titanic two, because we knew doing these
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: big ocean sets and doing water were very difficult for us.
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: We hadn't done it in the past, and I just
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: was looking at that where it really Titanic too. We
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: you know, my partners had free sold it, and uh,
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: that was film we're making, and I was really nervous about,
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: you know, doing it. But I'm like, no, we're gonna
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: still We're gonna still jump into where We're still gonna try.
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: And I think Titanic two is a success story certainly
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: just the way it's sold and all that stuff, but
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: just story white, the fun story, and it's a big
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: story and it looks great. I'm very proud of the film,
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: and you know, it's because we didn't limit ourselves and
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: we made it all work. We had tanks were drowning people.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: We shot at the Queen Mary, which is out here
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: in Los Angeles, to have that that look we've shot
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: a submarine. We shot, you know, it's like again, we
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: still didn't spend any more money than we had, and
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: that kind of leads into why we haven't lost the money.
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: You know, the asylum is very rare in the business.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: Usually it's your distributor, your sales agents, or your production company,
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: and that they don't miss. We're all those things. Forget
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: the sales dation, but we're for distributor and producer, which
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: make the a studio. I mean, we're the only industry
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: in US and like the Majors is we don't have
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: a road for a mascot. We don't have an amusic park,
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, which is really where you make the money.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: But it's we we uh uh, do everything they do,
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: which means that we pre sell things, you know, to
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: our to what we make. And so if we know
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: that a film is going to make a million dollars
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: because we pre sold it, it's my task at the
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: producer not to make it any more than that million
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: dollars or less, because we have whatever our overhead is.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: So if our over here is another hundred thousand off,
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: I don't make it. If I make it for more
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: than nine hundred thousand dollars, we're screwed. We've lost Bundy
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: and or whatever. The budget is a half million, quarter million,
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: two million, five million, but I have my constraint. Those
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: constraints are limiting, but they're also really exciting too, because
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: it makes you have to really think how to produce
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: a show for no money. And when I say no money,
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: you're like picked out, Well you just said a million dollars. Well,
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: we shot films for fifteen thousand. We've shot films for
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: one hundred thousand, you know, half a million. I mean
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: we've gone all over the place up to you know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: a few million dollars with the Sharknado series, and then
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: certainly our TV series ain't cheap it's cheap in the
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: television standard of things, but not cheap pretty so very
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: that's been deavor. So we haven't lost money because I
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: won't spend more than we have.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: It's a really odd concept. It's not the way the
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: film business works. Then we get into big arguments with
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: other people about it, and you know, in the studios
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: and whatnot. But it's or other producers that want to
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: produce at a bigger level. But it's just us. I mean,
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: at the end of the day, we're still working out
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: of you know, mentally, we're still working out of an
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: apartment and trying to live paycheck to paycheck. It's just
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: now we have a staff of forty two that have
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: insurance and pension and health and payroll and you know,
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: two big studios, downstages and equipment and all that stuff,
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: and you know, it's a little bit bigger, but it's
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: still the same feeling of we have to make x
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: amount of money in order to keep the doors open.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: We've been lucky, We've had some great, great, great opportunities
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: over the last you know, number of years, and so
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: we've been able to keep people employed, and then we
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: produce two films a month concluding and then on top
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: of that TV series, so you know, that's another fifty
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: to one hundred people every month. It's great. It's great
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: to surround yourself with people that are very passionate about
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: me and uh and love the business and want to proceed.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: Are you back from the bathroom yet? Should I wait?
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: I actually I just got back actually, okay, okay, then
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: hear the plot.
• 21:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's actually it's down the hallway.
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: So I uh got it. I was going to put
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: on it. I get it, and I appreciate it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So, you know, did I wanted to ask, you know,
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: when when you know you're making films. You know, obviously
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: you know you were talking about your criteria and everything
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: like that, but I mean, do you have a lot
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: of brainstorming sessions where you kind of just want to
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: come up with, you know, maybe something like you know,
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: someone's ever seen before? Or do you know, do you
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: sort of have like a people meaning like people in
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: a room just sort of throwing out different ideas and
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: when finally something finally, you know, hits, you know, you
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: sort of start developing that idea.
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: No, we're very boring. I mean, let's let's be very
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: clear work. I mean we we are because you know,
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: the networks, our partners, our buyers tell us what to make.
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: We don't. That's why we don't take pitches. And that's
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: the one thing. It's like, you know, in Twitter, and
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: I've started getting much more active on my Twitter page.
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: You know, I'll get at least ten to twenty felicitations
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: a day going hey, I wrote a script or I
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: have a novel, or I have an idea, and I have
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: to say, look, we don't do that. We don't take
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: We'll probably always do now. We don't take pitches, we
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: don't take submissions, we don't read novels. We don't care
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: because when sci Fi tells us to go put it,
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: make it film about a shark in the storm, We're
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: not going to have that script in the ready. We
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: have to go manufacture that script. We turn around to
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: our writers, our development team, and we produce that. We
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: find it, we we we make it. So it's very
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: very rare that someone comes to us with a project.
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: The only time I can think that it really happens
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: and happens exceptfully would be Nick Carter with Dead seven,
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: where he you know, came to us. But you know,
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: freaking Nick Carter. You know, it's it's hard to say no.
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: Plus he bought us lunch, you know, yes, anyway, but
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: he said, look, I'm a huge fan of the asylum.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: I'm a huge fan of the genre, the zombie genre,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to come to the table with the money.
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna come to the table with all my Backstreet
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: Boy band members and I'll get some in sync guys,
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: you know, and and I'm going to give you a
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: genre that you could sell, which is zombie. Now, we
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: wouldn't have gone forward if if we didn't turn around
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: at that point into THI FI and said, hey, look
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: we have this particular project. We don't necessarily do this,
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: but this case, you know, kind of came to us.
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: Are you interested? And they said yeah. If they said
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: if they have said no, that we would have done it,
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: because we're just not in that business to take scripts
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: and with the patients and submission. But we found a
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: partner that was willing to kind of say yes, we
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: will give this film a home at the end of
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: the day, and uh and promoted and do what we're
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: going to do. So that's when we were able to
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: work with Nick and to make it happen, and you know,
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: I'm really happy that we did. I'm very proud of
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: that film too. I think it's about really nice now
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: when you say, you know where the where's the creative
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: elements come into this thing, and you know the fun
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: and the rolling up the sleeve that happened after the
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: script is written, when you know you you've given the
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: studio or your partner what they want on this page,
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: which is great, and then you get to talk to
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: your filmmaking about what the style is going to be
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: and how we're going to approach and what we're going
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: to do and what's unique about the show that we're
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: going to do. I mean, I the one thing that
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: that I think you can't look at the Asylum movies
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: that are all cookie cutter, the same films, because we
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: hire tours and we hire really, you know, people with
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: strong vision and people that really wanted to create something
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: that unique and fun and interesting and not just cookie cutter.
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: And you know, master shot close and close enough. I mean,
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: they they're really trying to make something special. And so
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: that's when you really get into it and go, how
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: do we make the special and unique and fun for
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: the audience and uh and and enjoyable while maintaining what
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: the story lines and be for our buyer and uh
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: and make that happen. I'm you know, I'm a firm
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: believer that you know, Yeah, you have a thriller and
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: you know the you know heroin and the villain whatnot.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: But you know, you have those structural things, but you
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: can really do crazy stuff. You know, go go go
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: nuts and go crazy. I mean, there's no reason not to.
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: The audience wants to see if they want to be engaged,
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: and the filmmaker wants to do it. They want to
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: be engaged, and you have to kind of know your
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: audience too. I mean, we're gonna we're gonna go nothing
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: crazy on you know if Lifetime wants to do a
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: lot of stuff for Lifetime. But you know, we have
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: to keep it in the in the in the realm
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: of lifetime. You know, we can't shoot it black and
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: white and uh, you know close up of of Oz
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: and go that's your thriller. You know, you have to
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: you know, know the audience a little bit. But otherwise,
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: you know, the guys all want to have, you know,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: make a really engaging movie, and that's where we have
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: fun with the toys and get the creative part of it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: So I have to ask David, what did Nick Quarter
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: buy you for lunch?
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: Pizza? He actually came in and got everyone from the
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: office pizza, came in with uh catering. It was he
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: wined and dined everybody, so we couldn't say no, you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: it was it was a very unique approach to it
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: to getting our attention. But and in truth didn't have
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: to do anything. You know, we're all old enough for
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: U Bastreet Boys and that group was a big deal
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: and and still is. And the ed he just a
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: super nice guy. So uh, you know, it's hard to
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: say no to TONI.
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I was gonna say, I'll make sure to edit
• 26:48
  Speaker 6: that out because in case you wants to buy you
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: pizza again, you know, I should probably.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: Nothing have to you.
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: You briefly mentioned shark Nado, and you know when when
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: you when that movie came out, when Sci Fi Channel
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: came to you about you know, putting sharks in a storm,
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: did you ever imagine that it was gonna sort of
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: hit as well as it did.
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're fricking geniuses. We we know everything, and it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: really weird. We just we were one hundred percent on everything.
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: You know, No by by by Coming made Sharknato. I
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: think we made one hundred fifty movies and uh Sark
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: Nato was just one of them. And it was stupid,
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: and I you know, the first temut that I did
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: not understand the script. I get it, and but Sci
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: Fi loved the script when it was written, and they
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: were just like they couldn't get enough of the script.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: And so my my role as a producer is not
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: to get in the way, you know, of what the buyer,
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: and so sometimes I pushed back, but I was so
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: lost with that. I'm like, how does this work? And
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: it goes into the shark and the chainsaw because we
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: don't make comedies as much as you might want to
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: think that we make comedy. Now we do on the
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: Sextic comedy, but we really you know, lean heavily in
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: the sex sy not the comedy. But on all these
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: monster shows and creature shows, everyone takes very seriously. There's
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: no one's waking to the crowd, to the audience. And
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: you have Shark Nato, which is a huge wink and
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: it could be played that way certainly, and on the
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: script read comedy and I'm like this, we got it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: I was also I had agents of notes to get
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: back there and really kind of get more serious and
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: more grounded and more believable and euthentic and everything else.
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: But because sci fi love the script so much.
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: I completely backed off and said, all right, well, this
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: is our buyer and they want this and they love it,
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: so let's I'm not going to push the issue.
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: And I really didn't think much of anything. And we
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: had a bit of a time casting it because no
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: one wanted to be in a film called Sharknado. Tara
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: Reid signed up first, but I don't even know if
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: she even knew that she was a film calalled s Barnado.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: And that's not to say that she you know, I
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: know would joke her of that, but she's a busy
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: person and I think met her people just kind of said, look,
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: you're doing this film. They're gonna pay your X amount
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: of money. You know, you're in it for a week.
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: Just go and shoot this thing. It's good, you know,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: money than when you go to Barbados. You could, you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: spend on bikinis and my tie and so I'm sure
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: for hers that was just a quick, it, easy pay thing.
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: But we couldn't find the lead, and we went through
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: in the history of the of the Asylum from then
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: in that from beginning until even now, we've never had
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: to push a title, you know, push because of Pat,
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: and we had to do that for Sharknado. We could
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: not find the lead for Sharknado because no one wanted
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: to be in a film called Sharknado. So ultimately we
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: retitled it Dark to a film called Dark Skies, and
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: we packaged it. We had previously even gone to an
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: during but he turned us down.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: But we called the Dark Sky and we got high
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: in theuring. We paid him a lot more money than
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: you know at first on the first offer. And uh,
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: halfway through it the show, Uh, they heard rumors that
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: it was actually called Sharknado. And I stayed in this
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: trailer and called his agents that I want off the show,
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: and uh they all the cap bits said we're not
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: going to be And I got calls from the agents
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: and lawyers managed going you cannot call this film Sharknado.
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: We will not allow you to if you want these
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: actors to be in this film. We had Pasley Arthur.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: It was all right, then we'll recap, we'll read you
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: the whole thing. But you know, we're you know, basically,
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: actually our stand was, we don't know what it's going
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: to be called, which is true because side I could
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: have changed into anything that's not set up to sci fi.
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: If they want to call it. You know, this is
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: the craftiest film in the world. They can call it that.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: You know, that's up to them, and we're not gonna
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: you know, you know, pigeonhole them into what the title
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: is gonna be. So you know, there's a chance to
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: call it dark guys, there ancer was a Sharknado, there's
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: a cancer and call it shark in the storm. Who
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: knows what they're gonna call it, But let's go back
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: to work. So it took a few hours, but everyone
• 31:24
  Speaker 5: went back to work. But they were really pipped off
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: at his call. I think the only one that wasn't
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: a bet with John Hurd. I think you know he
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: got it from the get go. He was excited that
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: it was called Sharknado. He thought that this was going
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: to be a big hit. You know, you talk to
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: him and he he knew it all, which is which
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: was great. He probably does or did at the time,
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: because the man's insanely smart, and you know, he's been
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: the business forever, so he probably knew that we had
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: lightning in the bottle. But he might have been the
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: only one. I don't think anyone else. I think everyone
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: just looked at it as a either a forgettable movie
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: that no one's gonna, you know, give a rap act about,
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: or you know it's going to destroyed her career. I mean,
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: those are the only two choices. Not a film called Sharknado.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: It's like Snakes on a Plane when they were going
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: to change the name to like, you know, the tearor
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: on flight whatever, right, and then it became back to
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: stakes on a Plane.
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I mean I know that happened with with
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: a film we'd been called Mega Shark versus grynarcticput. Debbie
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: Gibson had never really done a film before, and her
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: manager basically said, look, just do this film. No one
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: will care. It'll be a forgettable movie. You know, at
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: least then you'll have something on your resume and you'll
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: move on. And for us of the time, Mega Shark
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: Versus Gronarctualist was a big film we'd ever done. It
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: became a huge culte, not like Sharknado. Nothing was like Sharknado,
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: but bigging up We're like, oh my god, this is phenomenal.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: You look it up for a Jeopardy question and the
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: crossword puzzled the New York Times. Then this is bizarre
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: and fun. And not knowing that Sharknado was right around
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: the corner, we thought that that would be on the
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: in the obituary the producer of Mega Shark, is there
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: an not with guy today? By yeah, but uh yeah,
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: but now I'll definitely do Sharknado. Maybe the nations, I
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: don't know now.
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: Now Shark Nado four is due well, I believe in
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: June correct, July thirty first, July thirty first, So is
• 33:24
  Speaker 6: there anything I know you can't go into specific details,
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: but is there is there any even little tidbits that
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: you you know, you can sort of mention on the
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: show right now?
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there will be shark, there will be tornadoes, there
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: will be an zury. Probably all the spoilers I could
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: give you.
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: You know, it's I do it title.
• 33:47
  Speaker 8: By the way, it's a challenge because you know, Thunder
• 33:52
  Speaker 8: the writer has at the bar so high with all
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: the fun gags and the fun things and that tweetable
• 33:57
  Speaker 8: moment and whatnot.
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: So you know, you never want to go into the projects.
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to do less than what the lat film was, so,
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: you know, I hope that we got there. I think
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: that we did. I think there's some really fun, like
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: holy crap moments in the film. We're done shooting, we're
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: just editing now, and it's I think it's coming together
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: really quite fun. I mean it's it's you know, but
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: how do your top sharks in the space? I think
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: we have an answer to that, so hopefully the audience
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: will agree.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: And I do you look at title the Fourth Awakens?
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: Yes, that that was courtesy of sci Fi.
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: I may make sure to link that in the show
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: notes as well. That the premiere of Sharknaedo four and
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: now will be on sci Fi correct.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: Right, sci Fi. It's a Sunday night this year, which
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: is I think really exciting. I think they're leaning into
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: the family time. I think they, you know, after doing
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: a lot of kind of who watched the show. They
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: understand that it's really a wide range. It's not their
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: typical CIPI audience, you know of like fifty year old
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: men that are longing for Stargate. I mean, it really
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: hits a big swath of demographics from I mean, we
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: have so many kids that are sharkdado paths, so many kids.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: Oh my god, my kids haven't even watched it. I
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: mean they haven't and they're like twenty five years old.
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: No they're not. But it really ranges on the age thing.
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: So I think Sunday nights a perfect night for it.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: Very excited. I think, you know they're going to pull
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: the stop out. They're gonna do a lot of fun stuff.
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: It's great that they're still supporting the show after four years.
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: It's bizarre in fact, you know how much support they're
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: putting into it. But we're very grateful and they're amazing partners.
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: And just like Twitter Bio, you mentioned your kid and
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: your Twitter buyer, you have of course, my kids tell
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: their friends I work at Walmart, right.
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: I think they would like that better because they would
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: get the swag, you know, the the gamas and the
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: shirt and stuff. They like wearing that stuff. Like I said,
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: they haven't seen my movies, but they do, like, you know,
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: wearing Shark Nado shirts. That's for sure.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I saw the Shark Nado pop vinyls and I
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: was like wow. I was like, this movie has really arrived.
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: And I even had a new Schaeffer on on the podcast,
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: and he wrote the book How to Survivor Shark Nado.
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: Right, and that was a New York Times best seller.
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: For god, it was crazy crazy.
• 36:31
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, it's it's it's it's.
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: You know if my partner Paul always says, like i'd
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: be prior to Shark Nado, he told people what you do,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: and you tell them, you know, like, oh great, what
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: films do you produce? And they look you like, you know,
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: you talking in the foreign language. But at least you
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: say Sharknado and everyone kind of goes, oh, okay, Yeah,
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: I haven't seen it, but I heard about it, which
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: is great. You know, how many filmmakers get that opportunity.
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: You know, We've made a lot of movies and and
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: just it's fun to play in that space and whatnot.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: But even even thunder kind of shakes me in the nuts.
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: With it and said, well, look, you get you go
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: to the you go about one hundred and fifty times
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: your bound to hit a home run. Okay, thanks.
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: We mentioned this briefly about one of your other projects
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: was which was Which is z Nation? And you know
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: I've actually had Doctor Merch on the podcast Lisa Crnado
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: and uh, you know, I did, you know, think that
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: was very interesting that you know, you know, The Asylum
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: did make a TV show because, like you said, it
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: is expensive because you know, instead of just being you know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: one product like a Sharknado, it's you know, it's episodic.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: You know, there's you know, so many episodes per season.
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: So what I wanted to ask, you know, is, you know,
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: you know, what was the impetus to start a TV
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: show by The Asylum.
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: Well, we've always been we've been recently circling that space
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: because that's where the world's going. I mean, uh, three
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: years ago, you had two hundred TV series that were available.
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: Now there's over five hundred. I mean, the the there's
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: a lot of content out there, and everyone's turned to
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: TV because there's no DVD market, there's no Blu ray market,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: there's no VOD market. The one up that we do
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: no one wants in the sense that they wanted it,
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: you know, years ago. So you know, if we want
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: to survive, we have to figure out what is making
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: money and series or you know, we think of making money.
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: We haven't seen that yet, but we've been told that
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: you can make money in TV series and so you know,
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: we've been circling that wagon for a very long time
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: and nothing really stuck. But we pretty much pre convinced
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: that the the thank you from Sci Fi for producing
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: Sharknado and doing the writings that it did, because it
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: broke records on their network and it became a big
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: success for them, you know at that station, the thank
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: you was here to do the seri we you know,
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: they even though we've been pitching for a while, they
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: kind of called up and said, hey, okay, take us
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: pitch to the side. But you know, you did this
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: movie for us a number of years ago called Zombie Poshlips.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: Well it was our number it was our third like
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: highest rated show, and and we're in the market to
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: do with other zombie to do a zombie series, and
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: we think that could transplace well into a TV series.
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: And you know, from what we hear now, you know
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: on on the back end of it is that, you know,
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: we got really lucky because that they ordered thirteen episodes
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: off the bat. They didn't do a pilot like a
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: normal network would do, so they they really were very
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: happy about Sharknado, I guess ultimately, and so we were
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: able to out the back get a searchain episode commitment.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: Which was really helpful for us, and the show found
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: its voice very early on the creator of Zombie Apocalypse also,
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: you know, co created a z Nation. We also brought
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: in Carl Shaper, who's a veteran in this business who's
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: been doing him for decade and was Sci Fi's top
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: choice to be our quote unquote showrunner. I say that
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: in quotes because it's not a legitimate title anywhere. But
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: the showrunner is like the main producer, guru, person that
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: kind of drives the show. And Carl in just I
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: don't even understand him. I thought I was a workaholic,
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: but he makes me like lazy, like my kids. I mean,
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: you know, just sleeping all the tire either. His work
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: ethic is bizarre to me where he is just twenty
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: four to seven, you know, working on Unze Nation, but
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: he really created the voice and the look in the
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: style with his team and both him and Craig Engler,
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: who with the other co creator, and it's Hey, I've
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: always said that if I wasn't producing the show, I'd
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: be a fan of the show because it's just it's
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: so fun. The Cats is so great, scripture phenomenal, the
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: production is amazing. I mean, there's just it hits in
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: all cylinders. So I'm grateful for that show. And it
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: happens to be sci Fi's number one scripted series, so
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: it's working on that level too, which is great.
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: And like you just said, David, you know there's so
• 41:32
  Speaker 6: much content out there now. You know, that's sort of
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: what everyone's been sort of sort of gunning for now
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: is a TV show. You know, you see like you know,
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: top actors and TV shows now and now you know,
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: everyone's creating their own original content and most of the
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: time it's you know, a TV show.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's because that's where the interest is
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: that people newing havoc of change, they're now the binges watching,
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: which is a thing I mean, and I know you're
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: eyes like, of course, the only way you know, you know,
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: everyone that younger than I am, which is a lot
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: of people here in this office don't even own a
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: television set. They have a computer and they binge watch,
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: they wait until it's on Netflix and they watch thirteen
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: episodes or something. So it's a tough, strange, bizarre world
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: that no one has an answer to and how to navigate.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: And we're just kind of all, like you know, zombies,
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: slowly walking towards you know, a goal. We just don't
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: know what that goal is at the moment. It'll it'll
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: clear up in a few years, but for now, it's like, Okay,
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: everyone's thinking, this is what we need to do, which
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: is great television content, thirteen plus episode, and so we're
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: doing it and we'll see if that if if it's truthful,
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: or if we close our door for me to go
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: fank for him. But those are all real possibilities. I mean,
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: you were playing at a higher level now, and it's tough.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: It's really tough, very true, very true.
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: You know, David, I know we're starting to run out
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: of time now, and I know you have to run,
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: so I wanted to, you know, just ask one final
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: question in closing. Oh, by the way, there before I
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: forget the one the number one question that came in
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: you've already answered, uh, and that was how do I
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: pitch a movie to asylum?
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah? And I get that a lot, and I feel
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: I feel so bad, but it's like, but you know,
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: we just we just were not in that business. And
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: I know I was struggling out there, and I know
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: they want a peta something, a extat of something, and
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: I'm just not in a posit unless you're part of
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: a boy band. I guess though that's the like the
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: one asters to it, you're part of a boy band,
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: probably I'll be something.
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: That when Nicholas did tweet me, so I guess he'll
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: be in touch. So uh so, you know include so
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: in closing, Dave, you know, if I could just you know,
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: one final question, and that would be, you know, is
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: there any sort of piece of advice or anything that
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: we didn't cover that you wanted to just sort of
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: mention that we didn't get a chance to, uh to
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: sort of put a period at the end of this
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: whole conversation.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, I will say that, Uh, I'm grateful
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: for the fan base out there. We seem to be
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: hitting some kind of cord and it's just really neat
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: and and jumping into the Twitter space. It's amazing, you know,
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: because I've been so insulated and so you know, to
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: see if there's people actually interested in what we do,
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: it's bizarre. So thank you to everyone that you know
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: has feels that way, and and and screw you for
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: those that don't feel that way. But you know, for
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: those that really want to try to get into the
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: business and to follow the passion of very hard, uh
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: you know, path to take, but it's fun. The biggest
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: advice I can give what I try and give when
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: people ask me the question of how do you do
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: s y B meet a lot of people. Just meet
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: a lot of people, go to parties, go to seminars,
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: go to festival. This business is all about relationships. It's
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: rarely by sending a resume d one. So you have to,
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: you know, just keep putting yourself out there and and
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: shaking hands and being a politician and uh, you know,
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: just getting yourself out there. That's that's like the biggest thing.
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: So and then the last thing is it's just on
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: a personal level, you know, for those that want to
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: engage in the conversation about file and stuff and what's
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: going on here. You know, please follow me on Twitter.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: I'm at David m Latt and uh. I pretty much
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: talk to everybody on there because I have no life.
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: I'm not producing a film. I'm usually on Twitter, you know,
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: answering questions from talking to everybody and fun. I enjoyed it.
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: I noticed you're very active on Twitter, David, and you
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: know that that's I'm very active on Twitter as well,
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: but you're even more active than I am. And that's
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: how we actually met again on Twitter. And you know,
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: you made that mistake of saying sure, I'll come on
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: your podcast, and now you're here, You're gonna regret that.
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: No, not at all. I enjoy it unless this is
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: all about me and not be them. I forgot, you know,
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: and to look through the research, you know, like, hey.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: No, right, exactly do the research?
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: Like who is this?
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: So?
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: How do you feel that aid off? Isn't it?
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: You know?
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: Now it's not good? Good?
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: How did I get on here again?
• 46:12
  Speaker 7: Yeah?
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: The problem of being my own public.
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: You know, David. I want to say thank you very
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: much and everyone listening, We're gonna I'm gonna put all
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: of the show notes so I'm gonna link to David's
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: Twitter as well. David Michaelatt, I want to say thank
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: you very much for coming on, sir.
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: Well, thank you thanks for having me appreciate it.
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: Oh my pleasure. I want to wish you the bessel
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: up with all the future projects of asylum.
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: Thank you calling me, Kime, take care of David all right,
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: you too, by good bye bye.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Forward slash for eighty eight. Thank you so much for
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: listening to guys as always, keep on writing no matter what.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: I'll talk to you soon.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the bullet Proof Screenwriting podcast at
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: fulip roof screenwriting dot tv.
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: M