Cast member Jonathan Mangum, executive producer Jay Kogen, cast memberNicole Sullivan, and director David Willis on the red carpet at the premiere.
Our Movie Has Premiered!
We’re happy to report that “I’ll Be Next Door for Christmas” just premiered at The Valley Film Festival to a packed house on Sunday, November 4th. In addition to cast and crew, that audience included around sixty of our investors and their families, some of whom flew in from all the over the country and even as far away as Europe to be there.
The film was well received — lots of laughs, and even a few tears in the more emotional moments. (It’s a Christmas movie!) There was only one member of the press there (we didn’t want to go wide with it yet), and she emailed our rep afterwards to tell us she’s going to call it “a funny family film for the holidays!” (Her words.) So that’s a good start!
We signed a deal for foreign distribution with a company called Vision Films. They are a mid-sized distribution company with a long history. We had MANY offers from foreign distributors, some with more impressive catalogs and slicker websites, but we’ve known the people at Vision for years, and their reputation for financial transparency and strong relationships internationally sealed the deal for us. They made one sale of the film in France within hours of us finalizing the deal, so we are excited to move forward with them. Of course, we’ll keep you posted on any more international releases.
The film is going to be officially released on December 4th in North America, on these platforms:
iTunes
Amazon
Google Play
DirecTV
Dish
AT&T
Vudu
…and pretty much every cable company in the U.S. through Video On Demand (Comcast, Spectrum, Cox, etc.)
Please note that the movie on all these platforms will be TVOD, which stand for Transactional Video on Demand. In other words, consumers must pay to rent or buy it. There is no free streaming! We probably won’t do free streaming until the movie (YOUR movie) has been out for a few years.
Unfortunately, there will be no DVD release this year. We had a DVD deal all lined up and ready to go with a certain company, but suddenly their numbers changed, so we cancelled the deal right before signing it. We kind of dodged a bullet there. We decided it's better to be cautious and make a deal for next year with a different company -- our first priority is to protect investors and maximize returns, and getting locked into a long term deal with less than ideal margins is something to be avoided. We’ll let you know when the ultimate DVD deal is finalized.
We’re coming to the end of a long journey made possible by YOU. Your investment and your support is culminating on December 4th when the whole world is going to have the opportunity to see this film. (And to answer a question a few of you have asked, getting a free copy of the film was not a part of how your investment was structured. I mean, if you buy Disney stock, they don’t send you a free copy of “Frozen,” right?)
On behalf of the entire That Christmas Movie team, we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for making this movie with us.
David Willis
Katherine Botts
Jay Kogen