Godkiller “You Demand It” theatrical tour launches

Pizzolo here… so at all our events people ask me when they’ll be able to see Godkiller in their local theater. We’d intended to give Godkiller a theatrical run, but the truth is we just didn’t know how the illustrated-film format would play theatrically. Whenever I would show segments of Godkiller to friends/contacts at theaters & film festivals who played our previous films, they’d always say: this is awesome, but seems like it’s best for the web not for theaters. Well, certainly we’re excited about distributing Godkiller on the web and digital downloads & streaming of the episodes have greatly supported this project, but I always felt there was a chance it could work in theaters as well because we really built it to be cinematic… and the experience of watching a film in a theater is just different than watching it online. Sometimes I enjoy seeing a movie on different platforms just to get the different experiences. There are movies I’ve seen in theaters, on TV, and online where I really love it in one place but not so much elsewhere, or it just affects me totally differently depending on where I see it. It’s a cliche, but sometimes the medium really is the message.

Seeing a movie in a theater overwhelms the senses in a way that TVs and computer monitors don’t, so especially when I’m trying to plunge you into an insane world like Godkiller then a theatrical setting is amazing. Also, watching a movie in theaters is such a shared, community experience… you get to see all the suckers who can’t handle the madness and walk out… everybody left in the theater at the end are true lunatics that you should either introduce yourself to or avoid at all costs.

But that only works if, y’know… the movie is actually a good theatrical experience. And we just didn’t know if Godkiller would work in theaters.

The first sense I had that this may truly work in theaters is when Alec Empire screened episodes 1 & 2 at the Berlin Film Festival. The response was great… which is a good sign, but Berliners are into some weird shit so we couldn’t be sure…

The debut screening at C2E2 in Chicago was the ultimate test for us… it was screening to a comic book audience, which seems like a slamdunk except comics fans are notoriously protective of sequential art so they’d be no pushovers to accept illustrated-films. Also, Chicago is not NY or LA… it’s actually part of America. NY thinks it’s its own continent and LA think it’s it own world, so screenings in NY or LA don’t really mean much as far as the rest of the country goes.

Well, the C2E2 screening was a big success. I didn’t hear (directly or through hearsay) a single complaint about watching the format in the theatrical setting… everyone really seemed to dig it and any critiques were cinematic in nature… we’re still figuring out how to balance the world-building a comic book requires versus the heavy-exposition a film hates, so there was a scene in the middle where a few people felt it was too expository–that was a great critique, because it means to me that the format works cinematically and so we need to keep the world-building stuff in the comic but treat the illustrated film like… well, a film. It may sound obvious, but this is a new thing we’re building here so every piece of feedback is critical in making this work.

Anyhow, the good news is that the C2E2 screening was a smashing success and we’re confident now that we can roll out Godkiller in theaters… of course, that’s easier said than done. A lot of great indie theaters have been shut down or assimilated into mini conglomerates in the past few years, so it’s tougher and tougher to book indie theatrical runs (even the arthouse theaters are packed with screenings from mini-major “specialty” distributors). A lot of people have suggested we do something like Paranormal Activity’s early theatrical run, but that “You Demand It” campaign was about demanding Paramount book screenings in particular cities… we don’t have a sugar-daddy like Paramount that we can demand shit from. We actually have to get things done ourselves. Well… not really, ourselves… if you want to demand it, then you have to help us.

So… we are launching the GODKILLER You-Demand-It tour — but instead of just going on a website and clicking “play this movie in my town,” if you want Godkiller to come to your town then we’ll need you to get off your ass and help by promoting the film locally. That means helping us find a local theater, getting out flyers at local shows, getting posters up around town, etc. You all demand we work harder than everybody else to make crazy shit for you, well we demand you work harder to support our crazy shit than just clicking a button on some tour booking website. Fair enough?

We would love for Godkiller to come to your town and scramble the brains of you and your friends & neighbors, but we can’t do it alone… we need your help. If you’re ready, willing, & able to drag your whole town down the rabbit-hole with us, then hit up Maddy (maddy -at- halo8 -d0t- tv) and she’ll get you the gear to wreak havoc on your town.

Non serviam- Pizzolo