OREM (April 9) -- Two BYU film graduates who set out to make feature-length comedies based on Latter-day Saint culture are apparently succeeding, slowly but surely. Although they haven't recouped their half-million- dollar investment quite yet, Kurt Hale and Dave Hunter's HaleStorm Productions in [sic] on track with "The Singles Ward," a laugh-out-loud comedy that accurately lampoons the LDS singles scene.
The movie premiered in Salt Lake City Jan. 30 and is still filling large theaters at Jordan Commons, Jordan Landing, Layton and Provo's Wynnsong every weekend.
"If you were to go there on a Friday or Saturday afternoon and try to get tickets for that night, you couldn't get in," said Hunter, who's understandably keeping a close watch on the movie's reception.
He estimates 120,000 people so far have seen the movie in Utah, several of them more than once. The sound track, featuring local bands playing covers of Primary songs, is also selling well in local music outlets.
"We roll out in theaters all over Idaho April 19, then Arizona May 8 and California the beginning of June," he said, noting that HaleStorm gets "probably a hundred emails a day" from those states asking when the movie is coming.
"In the meantime," said Hunter, "we'll be hitting little Mormon pockets in Colorado and Wyoming" with screenings of the highly entertaining movie.
The gross box office during the Utah run has reached about a half million dollars, according to Hunter. "We hope to do about $2.2 million at the box office," he said. "We're still on track to do that."
"The Singles Ward" is the first of three LDS- oriented comedies which the BYU film school graduates plan to produce before jumping into the general feature film market.
Hunter said he and Hale want to deal in the market they know before spreading their wings to encompass a larger one.
Shooting begins in May for "The R.M.," about a returned missionary who returns to find his family has moved and his girl and job have both evaporated, too. Next comes "Church Ball," whose title is self- explanatory who's ever witnessed the unsportsmanlike behavior of church ball teams.
"We know what'll work," says Hunter in explaining why he's doing what he's doing.
Hunter sees "Singles Ward" and the two LDS-oriented comedies to follow as progress toward making bigger, general-release feature films.
"I know it sounds corny," he says, "but we really want to get in and make great films for the world to see. These are our stepping stones."
-- See more about "The Singles Ward" and HaleStorm Entertainment on at www.singleswardthemovie.com.
PHOTO CAPTION 1: Cameo: Steve Young as Brother Niner, age of 30, admonishes young people in a singles ward that an unmarried man over the age of 26 is a menace to society. (Photo courtesy HaleStorm Entertainment)
PHOTO CAPTION 2: Happy homecoming: Friends - played by Jenny Higbee, Michael Birkeland, Daryn Tufts, Sedra Santos and Will Swenson - await the arrival home of a missionary in a scene from "The Singles Ward," an LDS-oriented comedy which has enjoyed success along the Wasatch Front. (Photo courtesy HaleStorm Entertainment)
PHOTO CAPTION 3: Unwelcome attention: An overly enthusiastic Sarah (Kim Wares) forces affectionate moves on Jonathan (Will Swenson) during a girls - choice dance in "The Singles Ward." (Photo courtesy HaleStorm Entertainment)
From the makers of "The Singles Ward" comes a hilarious new Mormon comedy called "It's Funny Because It's True." We have obtained a top-secret copy of the script, which we thought was strange, since "The Singles Ward" didn't even HAVE a script.
SCENE: BYU CAMPUS
McKAY: Hey, Spencer, want some Jell-O?
SPENCER: Only if it's green and has shredded carrots in it.
McKAY: We Mormons sure eat a lot of Jell-O!
SPENCER: It's funny because it's true!
[41 more lines like these, in which Snider refers to Gordon Jump, "an eight-cow woman" (from "Johnny Lingo"), Porter Rockwell, Jell-O, Hogi Yogi, J. Golden Kimball, Donny Osmond, mission calls, Orrin Hatch, Family Home Evening, the MTC, Merlin Olson, Orson Scott Card, Relief Society and Primary.
Snider's faux "script" satirizes "The Singles Ward" (which is interesting, given the fact that "The Singles Ward" is already a satire). This is at least the fourth article Snider has written about "The Singles Ward."]
Eric D. Snider's comments about this column, from his own website (http://www.ericdsnider.com/snide/snide278singlesward.php3):
COMMENTS & REACTION: "The Singles Ward" was released in Utah theaters on Feb. 1, 2002. I was among many critics to declare it amateurish and sloppy, and altogether unfunny. The jokes presented in this "sequel" are an exaggerated version of the jokes "Singles Ward" was full of: cameos and broad references to things Mormon audiences would be familiar with. In "The Singles Ward," you don't need to say anything ABOUT Jell-O; just mentioning it is enough to get a laugh.I have chronicled elsewhere the small battle we had with the people who marketed the film, who twisted negative reviews to look positive in their advertising. That incident eliminated whatever goodwill I may have still had for the movie.
2nd Annual Thunderbird International Film Festival
April 11-14th, 2002, Cedar City, UT
2002 Festival Winners
Karl Malden Award Winners
Fiction: Clay Essig, Fortune Cookie
Non-Fiction: Clark Jarrett, The Return of Paul Jarrett
Student/Amateur Winners
Short Action: Re-Arranged
Short Comedy: The Penny Game
Honorable Mention (HM): A Man of Substance
Short Drama: Saudade
Short Open Genre: It Happened in a Bugalow
Long Comedy: The Pope of Pontius County
Long Documentary: West End Story
Long Open Genre: Lost Soul
Professional Winners
Short Comedy: A Package For Me
Short Documentary: Elijah's Story
Short Drama: -Life-Line-
Short Open Genre: The Quarry
Long Comedy: Singles Ward
HM: Fortune Cookie
Long Documentary: Oscar Niemeyer
Long Drama: Il Terzo Leone
"Best" Winners
Picture/Fiction: Singles Ward
Picture/Non-Fiction: Elijah's Story
Director/Fiction: Singles Ward
Director/Non-Fiction: Elijah's Story
Editor: -Life-Line-
DP/Fiction: The Offering
DP/Non-Fiction: Oscar Niemeyer
Screenwriter: Clara
Make-up: A Package For Me
Sound: The Offering
Production Design: A Package for Me
Wardroge: Saudade
Family Friendly Award
Kosher
"The Other Side of Heaven" has displaced "God's Army" as the box-office champion among LDS movies.
After four months of playing primarily in Utah and Idaho, "Other Side" was released nationwide last weekend, playing on 306 screens. It took in $688,762, bringing its total to $2,716,662.
"God's Army," which played in theaters in 2000, earned $2,628,829. It cost approximately $300,000 to make.
"Other Side," which cost a reported $7 million to produce and is the true story of John H. Groberg's missionary experiences in Tonga, also cracked the Top 20 for the first time. It landed at No. 19 -- between the ultra-bloody "Resident Evil" and the lesbian romantic-comedy "Kissing Jessica Stein."
According to Excel Entertainment Group, which distributed the film, "Other Side" had the top per-screen average of any film in the nation Monday night. This is probably attributable to Monday being designated as a night for families to spend together, and to the film's family-friendly PG rating.
The film was promoted through a combination of guerrilla PR and volunteer grass-roots campaigns that mobilized support for the movie in communities around the nation, an Excel statement said.
Its success has not been due to any particular praise from movie critics. According to RottenTomatoes.com, which keeps track of critical consensus for all films, 21 out of 28 reviews have been more negative than positive. Most reviews have acknowledged the film's sincerity, though, and its high-quality production values. Its squeaky-clean morals have not gone unnoticed, either.
In other LDS film news, "The Singles Ward" continues to plug along, playing on about 10 screens each weekend since its Feb. 1 release. Last weekend, it earned $16,844, bringing its total to $486,730. Its reported budget was $400,000.
With a per-screen average of $1,684, "The Singles Ward" made more per theater than Top 20 films such as "Big Trouble" ($840 per screen) and "E.T." ($960 per screen).
Richard Dutcher, the Moses of LDS filmmaking, is excited, but he can't really talk about it.
"We should have a talk in a couple of weeks," Dutcher said over the phone from his Utah County offices recently.
Dutcher is deep into pre-production on "The Prophet," a movie biography of the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith. The project has had its ups and downs -- the potential of a government strike in Canada (where he will shoot principal photography), and having to scramble to find investors after support from one Utah bigwig fell through.
In the meantime, Dutcher is touting the DVD release Tuesday of his last movie, "Brigham City," and casting a fatherly eye on the explosion of LDS-themed movies that have followed in the wake of Dutcher's "Brigham City" and "God's Army."
"The Other Side of Heaven" opened regionally last December, and went national a week ago (the reviews were excoriating -- Stephen Holden of The New York Times, for one, wrote that "the movie's vision of a white American zealously spreading a Puritanical brand of Christianity to South Seas islanders is one only a true believer could relish.") Two more hit Utah theaters in February: the romance "Out of Step" and the comedy "The Singles Ward." (Dutcher made a cameo in "The Singles Ward," but has requested his scene be removed from the movie's video release.)
"Last month, there was one weekend . . . I opened up the paper and saw these three LDS movies playing at the same time," Dutcher said, not without some pride.
"At the same time, I seriously question the wisdom of releasing them all at the same time," he said. "They're all going for the same audience."
Dutcher is concerned about the quality of other LDS filmmakers' movies. "My hopes for Mormon filmmaking have changed," Dutcher said. "I had the hopes that they would all be intelligent and there would be a real depth and substance to them, and a certain level of technical quality. The reality is that those are going to be the highlights. . . . I want all of them to be 'Lawrence of Arabia' quality movies, and they're not going to be."
Dutcher fears a parochialism could creep into LDS filmmaking. "I don't want Mormon cinema to be Utah cinema. I want Mormon cinema to be very diverse," he said. "Whatever the story is, if you're telling it honestly and with sincerity, even though it may have Mormon particulars and may be saturated with Mormonism, then it can become universal. It can transcend the regional specifics."
He cites "Out of Step," about a Mormon girl following her dancer's dreams in New York, as an example of a good movie with crossover potential. It fared poorly in its limited February run, but Dutcher said, "I'm hoping that film will get another shot at it."
Dutcher is supportive of other LDS filmmakers. "I've always had this open-door policy, as far as sitting down and sharing whatever information I have," he said. "People are very guarded about distribution information, exhibition information, how you actually get movies into theaters. . . . I'm always very open about that, and will continue to do so because I want to see these movies made."
But Dutcher is learning to be more careful about letting his name be used for dubious projects. "I'm becoming wiser about this," he said.
The DVD release of "Brigham City" is testing the limits of marketing an LDS-themed movie. The distributor, Spartan Home Entertainment, will have two video-box covers for the movie: One features Dutcher's sheriff character holding a gun, next to images of costars Wilford Brimley and Matthew A. Brown; the other, which Dutcher calls "the B-movie horror approach," includes a sinister eye, a gnarled hand on an ax handle, and the movie's title dripping blood.
"I see the reasoning behind it from a marketing standpoint," Dutcher said of the slasher-movie art, which will be available at major national chains. (The tamer cover will be more prevalent in Utah stores.) "I do have concerns that the people who would really enjoy this movie may not rent it. . . . and the people who rent the movie based on the cover art may not enjoy it."
The DVD will include a director's commentary, but Dutcher looks forward to having enough time to create deluxe DVDs of "Brigham City" and "God's Army." "I will someday, probably when they don't let me make movies anymore," he joked.
"It's fun to see them continue on," he said. "Now it's interesting, just because we're having 'God's Army' about to open in Latin America in theaters, and we're watching that happen at the same time 'Brigham City' is coming out on video and DVD and making foreign sales, and being on heavy preproduction on 'The Prophet.' They don't go away. I guess they're like children -- you have to keep watching them and seeing what they go out and do in the world."
[Excerpt]
In my quest I stumbled across ldsfilms.com, a website created by LDS music composer, Thomas C. Baggaley and David Preston Hunter of Texas.
I had intended to name names and point to projects. It is not possible. There are hundreds of names and scores of projects in production, in planning or planted firmly in the garden of dreams.
Movie making is a very different kind of "art." Some would argue that film making isn't really "art" at all. "How," some argue, "can we equate the murals on the walls of the Navuoo temple with Singles Ward?" But each has its perfect place. Each is sublime within its context.
[Excerpt from article.]
An interesting byproduct of "God's Army" and "Brigham City" is the proliferation of Mormon movies that have followed: "The Other Side of Heaven," "Out of Step" and "Singles Ward" already this year, with several more on the way. And on May 20, Dutcher starts shooting his ambitious Joseph Smith biopic, to be filmed in western New York and Canada.
Of his becoming the godfather of LDS cinema, Dutcher says, "I have mixed feelings. Naturally, I have a particular vision in hopes for what Mormon filmmmaking will be, and some of these films give me anxiety. But of the other films, this little 'Out of Step' movie that hardly received any kind of release at all, I was very pleased with that. I was also very pleased with the production values of 'The Other Side of Heaven.' I think that's been a good film for the Mormon genre, the Mormon niche, just because kind of looks wonderful."
But he does have a concern about the market being big enough to accommodate so many all at once.
"It is kind of thrilling," Dutcher said. "When 'Out of Step' came out, I picked up the paper that day and saw that three LDS movies were playing in theaters the same weekend. But I don't understand why they all were all out in the same market at the same time; three films fighting for the same audience. I'd prefer to see one come out after another. That's one thing I think the Mormon film community will have to learn, to be cooperative and not competitive."
This week, our readers weigh in on LDS cinema and its critics:
You quote Richard Dutcher [in your April 21 column] as saying "I don't want Mormon cinema to be Utah cinema." My question to him is: Then why do you make Mormon cinema that is Utah cinema?"Brigham City" is definitely targeted to a Mormon audience. It could have been a good movie, but its emphasis on Mormon religious observances diminishes in the eyes of many the ordinances Mormons hold dear (passing the sacrament, blessings, etc.). Also, the observances are either not understood or misunderstood by those who are not familiar with the Latter-day Saint view of the world. Indeed, the movie was classic "Utah" cinema. Had it been filmed as "Anytown U.S.A." with a generic religious population centered around a generic church organization without being so specifically "Utah" and "Mormon," it would likely have had a great appeal to the entire moviegoing population of the country.
I personally dislike the idea of parading sacred Latter-day Saint ordinances across the movie screens in general-attendance movie theaters. These things are much more delicately treated in our church films. Perhaps I am a majority of one, but I have in fact heard many others express the same sentiment.
-- Paul B. Winn
[Means' response] "God's Army" is Mormon cinema, but it is not Utah cinema -- it was shot in Los Angeles, and its main character was from Kansas -- and its popularity outside of Utah (albeit largely, though not entirely, with LDS audiences) bears witness to that.
Making "Brigham City" more generic may have broadened its appeal, but it would have destroyed the story. The main character, Wes Clayton (played by Dutcher), is both the sheriff and his ward's bishop -- and it is the conflict between those roles that creates the movie's tension. Making Wes a generic preacher would not have worked, because in most other churches, a minister doesn't hold down another job.
I thought the LDS rites Dutcher showed illuminated Clayton's story, making it as specific to his character as a Catholic baptism did with Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" or the opening synagogue service did to the single Jewish woman in "Kissing Jessica Stein."
It was unfair to quote [in your April 21 column] the single excerpt from The New York Times as representative of movie reviews of "The Other Side of Heaven." The Times' politically correct reaction is predictable and has nothing to do with the quality of the movie.-- Robb Cundick
[Means' response] Alas, it was representative. The Rotten Tomatoes Web site (www.rottentomatoes.com), a clearinghouse of movie reviews, listed a lowly 24 percent of critics -- seven out of 29 -- giving "The Other Side of Heaven" a favorable rating (and I was one of the seven). Most complained about the way the Tongans were relegated to second-class status in the film -- but others also talked about its corniness and flat characters.
[In your March 10 column,] you wrote: "[Kurt] Hale told me he made 'The Singles Ward' for $400,000. That's double what the 2002 Sundance Film Festival entry 'Tadpole' cost, and it had Sigourney Weaver and Bebe Neuwirth going for it."
You failed to mention that "Tadpole" was filmed on Sony HDCAM, basically a hopped-up home-video camera. So now eliminating the 35mm camera costs, 35mm film stock costs, 35mm processing costs, and (since it was projected in the video format) 35mm transfer costs -- you save a few bucks right there. Maybe even the difference of the cost between "Tadpole" and "The Singles Ward." Did I also mention that they were able to get around the tens of thousands of dollars in New York City permit fees and insurance fees required by those permits because they filmed on video? They were able to make their shooting look more like a tourist shooting a home video and not a movie shoot to avoid the police. Add those costs in, you well exceed the budget of "The Singles Ward." Now you have at least a $1 million movie with Sigourney Weaver and Bebe Neuwirth going for it.
-- John Moyer, co-writer,
"The Singles Ward"
"Tadpole" was shot in hi-def and Weaver deferred all of her Screen Actors Guild fees and wages, so your comparison may have still been a bit biased. Regardless, like we told your partner Jeff Vice, we're not bad guys, and we hope you'll be able to view our films in the future fairly.
-- Kurt Hale, director,
"The Singles Ward"
[Means' response] So the makers of "Tadpole" took advantage of the new technology and you didn't. Boo hoo.
As readers may recall, I made the comparison to "Tadpole" after "The Singles Ward's" makers complained that I compared their little movie to big-budget movies. They, again, miss the point -- a movie's budget has little to do with its quality.
As for Mr. Hale's comments, two points: I reviewed your first movie fairly, even if you didn't like the results; and, regarding Jeff Vice, my counterpart at the Deseret News, I quote from any number of buddy-cop movies: "We're not partners!"