Paulington here. Best selling novelist Tucker Max, who wrote the book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, responded to a recent letter I received concerning the upcoming adaptation of his book. He posted the email here. This is what he had to say in regards to my (somewhat) misinformed thoughts about the film and its progress. Basically, he called me out. But I never claimed to be a know-it-all wizard. I am just doing this for a paycheck, and to help promote his film:

To read more about his thoughts on film sites and their way with information, go to his own personal production blog where he extolls on the matter. It’s pretty great. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell opens September 29th, 2009. Starting in August, Max will be taking the film on a tour of college campuses. We will have more information in the coming weeks.

Date: Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 12:53 PM

Subject: Dude, just come to the source

I appreciate you writing about the movie, but here is what I don’t

understand: You claim you don’t have any info on the movie because

Freestyle hasn’t sent you any, but then you link my site. If you know

enough to read the blog, why would you not just email me directly and

ask me any question you want? I am nothing if not accessible and

self-promoting, and there is a contact form on the site that goes

directly to me.

Let me clear some things up for you:

-I not only wrote this movie with Nils, we produced it. Not “we got a

producer credit” produced it, but we were the only producers–aside

from Sean McKittrick–who have been involved in every single step of

this process. Good or bad, it is our creative vision.

-You are absolutely right to question how the book will translate into

a movie, especially because the book doesn’t have a coherent

narrative. We realized this early on, and focused intently not only on

the humor–which was easy–but on making a MOVIE, which means having a

great story. I think we pulled it off, but at the very least, know

that we understood this going in.

-Please don’t say things like “If Freestyle is smart”, etc–it makes

the wrong implication. Freestyle is one of the distributors, but not

in the normal sense. With most movies, the distributor owns the movie

and makes the creative decisions about marketing and promotion. Not

really the case here. All the creative decisions–trailer, poster,

marketing, etc–are being made by me, Nils, and the Darko team, with

our distribution partners adding input and helping us execute our

plan. Succeed or fail, it’s on us, not the distributor.

-When I said the trailer stunk, I was talking about the first draft of

the trailer. First drafts of everything stink. Please do not think

this first draft will EVER been seen by anyone outside us and the

trailer house. We won’t release anything until we get a version we all

like and agree on.

-The Premiere Tour is not going on now. It starts in late August, and

runs up until the release. We will finalize the schedule by July 10th,

hopefully.

-BTW, the release date is September 25th, not September 29th.

-When you haven’t seen the movie, speculating about what the movie is

like by relying on nebulous and inaccurate rumors is unproductive,

especially when there is already a review out there by another

professional reviewer that was at an early screening.

-Beyond that, I have listed a ton of reviews from other people who

have seen the movie on my site, for example.

-But there is no reason to listen to anyone else–you are of course

welcome to come to any screening you want. As soon as we lock the

Premiere Tour schedule down, I will email you and invite you whichever

screening is closest to where you live. I think this movie is awesome,

and all the early feedback has confirmed this, so I am more than eager

to get it in front of as many eyes as possible.

There are a ton of other things I could address, but they are minor,

so whatever. In the future, if you have any question or want any info,

just come directly to the source. I know this is

a novel thing for movies, and no other film companies run their

projects this way, but we are different.

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