My Documentary Updates!

Hi,

The stories you left under Webworm's Sam Neill tribute were incredible. Some of you had a specific memory of a favourite film or TV show, and a bunch of you even met the guy. He sounded fucking lovely. There was plenty of reflection in the comments, too. Siobhan's has stuck in my brain:

"When my father died, I struggled with the fact that he was one of the good ones. That the world was a worse place without him in it, and yet nobody knew. Everyone carried on about their day like the world wasn’t a little bit worse than it had been before. This celebrity death hit me harder than most, but it warms me to know that Sam Neill’s children won’t have that experience. Everyone knows, he was so loved."

I encourage you to read through all the comments. As per usual, Webworm has the best comments section on the internet.

Today, I wanted to share a few documentary updates – including a weird new documentary I'm an executive producer on. I also have some Tickled news (it's been 10 years!) and wanted to talk about meeting the godfather of podcasting – and notorious grump – Marc Maron.

I'm happy to take any questions in the comments about all this stuff, and anything else in documentary-land that's on your mind. Even "Where is Dark Tourist Season Two?"

The New Doc I'm Involved With

A few years ago, I was contacted by Giant Pictures, the outfit that helped fund and release Mister Organ.

They had a new documentary in development called "Mockbuster" – the brainchild of Anthony Frith, a first time documentary-maker from Australia. They asked if I would be an executive producer. It was a no-brainer. I said yes.

The premise had me hooked: Frith was a failed filmmaker (well, failed in that his film-making dreams were not coming true). He'd resorted to cold-emailing The Asylum, the LA based production house behind notorious knock-off movies like Sharknado.

If you're unfamiliar with Sharknado, it's about a tornado that picks up a bunch of sharks and launches them – from the air – into Los Angeles. Until Sharknado, sharks had largely been confined to the water in horror and action films. Now they were airborne.

Sharknado came out in 2013, but The Asylum had already been at it for 16 years – making as many films as they could for the least amount of money possible. A big part of their business plan relied on mimicking other films – in both title and subject – so people would accidentally purchase them, thinking they were something else.

Instead of The Da Vinci Code, we got The Da Vinci Treasure. Instead of Transformers, Transmorphers. The day before Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds came out, they released their own shitty version. The Asylum particularly enjoys dining out on already schlocky movies – so when Snakes on a Plane was released, The Asylum had Snakes on a Train. When Roland Emmerich's Moonfall came out in 2022, The Asylum was there not just with Meteor Moon, but with Moon Crash and Shark Side of the Moon as well.

With all this in mind, Anthony Frith emailed them asking to direct their next "mockbuster".

They said yes.