Knights of Badassdom - Finally Coming Soon!

The announcement came out today that Entertainment One has procured the North American distribution rights for Knights of Badassdom, a much anticipated fantasy/horror/comedy (yes, it’s all three!) film starring Peter Dinklage, Summer Glau, Ryan Kwanten, Steve Zahn, and directed by Joe Lynch. Though an exact date of the theatrical and VOD release hasn’t been announced yet, this means that everyone will get to see it soon (I’m told it’ll most likely be at least several months out).

Here’s a link to the deadline article: http://www.deadline.com/2013/07/knights-of-badassdom-entertainment-one-acquisition/

And the variety article: http://variety.com/2013/film/news/peter-dinklage-knights-of-badassdom-1200568044/

 For those unfamiliar with Knights, the Trailer is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyougFDZ7zU

For those familiar with Knights of Badassdom story, this is great news which has been a long time coming!  As an executive producer and investor in the film (not to mention a huge fan of Peter and Summer), I have seen progressive cuts of the film since around the time of the very popular panel at ComicCon in 2011, and seen it evolve from a very rough cut without effects into the final form earlier this year and I can say that it came together very nicely.

Anyone who understands independent films understands that they are tough in a way that studios films aren’t.  As a startup guy, I know that unexpected challenges are almost to be expected; and it’s the same for indie films (see my post, angel investing: top 5 reasons why indie films are like startups).

While shooting an indie film is tough, getting popular actors to join your indie film is even tougher.  What’s even tougher than that is raising money from individual investors – in this case millions of dollars – often not knowing if or how the film will be distributed or ever make a profit.   What’s even tougher than that is to build a buzz for your film, and the most difficult part of indie films? It’s to get a decent distribution partner to make sure the film can be seen by the fans and that investors actually have a chance to make their money back.  Sadly, most indie films never get a decent distribution deal and as a result are financial failures.

In the case of Knights, even with such recognizable stars, it was a long process, made more difficult by so much unnecessary internet chatter about different “cuts”, but the film came out great, and we’re all pleased to have a distribution partner like Entertainment One.   In addition to acknowledging Joe Lynch (the director), the writers and the producers from Indie Vest, I’d like to give great shout out to Dan Heffner (who also produced the wildly popular Saw films) for shepherding the film into its final “cut”, and to the investors for sticking with it through a very long road, and to Wade Bradley for overseeing the whole process from one tough challenge to the next.

To the fans who supported Knights and built the buzz around it – a big thanks and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it when it finally gets released - today was a good day on a very long journey! 

Recent Articles on the Zen Of Entrepreneurship

There were a couple of articles recently about the content of "Zen Entrepreneurship: Walking the Path of the Career Warrior", on a few popular entrepreneurship websites here in the US and in Europe.

I think they provide a good summary of how to apply the principles that the book is about to a startup or to any career path, really.   Rather than repeat the content here, you can read them at their original source.

The first was an article I wrote as a guest contributor for Tech Crunch, probably the most popular startup blog in the Silicon Valley, titled  The Zen of Entrepreneurship (Tech Crunch). It outlined four key principles that I think all entrepreneurs can apply to stay more conscious of how they are unconsciously affecting the course of their business, whether they want them to or not.

The second was on Venture Village, a popular european startup and career success website, titled:  How To Attain Spiritual and Work-Life Bliss.  It tackled the same principles but from a different angle, of how to have more balance and use your intuition in your career.