Big November Update!
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
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David -- thank you for the long post and simple explanation to help us better understand. It's so exciting and I greatly appreciate your transparency :)
You're very welcome, Jennifer!
Hi Fellow Investors!
Please share this entire post on your facebook page and with everyone you know to start spreading the word and hopefully bump it on a regular basis. Thanks!! (This was approved by David since it is a public post)
Trailer is on youtube and facebook. Looks great!
Thanks, We worked really hard on that.
Is there any update on the sales platform that will be used to track profits and how do we as investors see how much is being made for our investment and when/how is money disbursed throughout the year? Thanks! This is so awesome, I've already told friends and I'm about to pre-order!
Hi, Jennifer. The Aggregator (the company that actually places the movie on all the platforms, called Giant Interactive) will send us regular updates regarding sales. (Probably weekly.) They'll tell us how many units were sold/rented on each platform and send us the revenue. Then we will disburse the revenue to investors per your investment contract. As for "when," different platforms pay on different schedules. Cable TV takes longer to pay than Amazon, for example, but they all do it quarterly. For example, when the movie gets revenue in December 2018, they won't pay Giant that revenue until the first quarter of 2019, then Giant doesn't have to pay us till the end of that quarter. So if someone buys our movie on iTunes on December 4th, 2018, we won't get a check for that until the end of March, 2019. That is the timeline that has been given us, and from what I hear from other indie movies, that is standard. It *could* take even longer if it's slowed down anywhere along the chain, since they all have a 90 day window to pay. That means at worst it could take 180 days for us to receive revenue. Then once we receive the revenue, we have to process payments to 883 investors, which costs us around $5,000. BTW, even though it could take a long time to RECEIVE the revenue, we will KNOW about that revenue much much sooner because Giant reports to us. We will get sales figures for iTunes and Amazon within days, for example. So in early January 2019, we will know exactly how many units were sold/rented on those platforms and how much revenue to expect to receive at the end of the quarter. But cable/DirecTV, etc., take much longer to report. Sorry for the long answer!
David, Katherine and the rest of the wonderful gang,
I cannot thank you all enough for one of the most awesome nights of my life!! As I told you on Sunday the movie exceeded my wildest expectations by about 1,000 plus times! The cast, the cinematography, the skilled acting (especially the guy with the fake and bad British accent) the script, the score and every single thing associated with it and I am honored to be associated with such a warm and wonderful group of people!!
My favorite part (aside from Lil Bub of course) was the humor! We all laughed soo hard at the MANY hilarious, fresh and unexpected scenes that seemed to come out of nowhere and popped up so frequently!
Thanks a million for this terrific ride so far and looking forward to all of the future excitement to come!!!
Aw, thanks, Lee Ann. We're so happy that you enjoyed it. It wouldn't have been possible without you investors!
Also, what about a trailer on youtube?
Brent, that's all being coordinated by our PR firm now. The trailer will debut sometime next week. Of course, we'll let everyone here know!
Congratulations. It may be wise to start an Instagram account with behind the scenes photos and trailer, to get the word out, about Dec 4th.
Congratulations on a successful premier and the distribution deal. When you’re rested and ready for the next film, count me in.
Thanks, Stephen!
Thanks for another great update! I am really excited to pre-order the movie on iTunes since I believe pre-order numbers count towards rankings/charts. I am also excited for helping to get the word out about the movie and believe that it's a huge benefit of having so many investors, like having a cult following already. I want to run around telling everyone about the movie now, but I know I should wait so as to not to get people excited too many weeks before it becomes available. Thanks again for all the great work making this happen and I look forward to more updates as everything comes together in the home stretch!
We love your enthusiasm, Andrew! We've been doing some research into whether or not we should be careful of what they call "ballot stuffing" with the reviews. We haven't drawn any conclusions yet, but apparently IMDB adjusts your rating if you get a flurry of super positive (or super negative) reviews right away. Of course, presales is a different matter than reviews, and those hard numbers are very much a good thing!