Of Ninjas and Tomatoes
By Tim.
Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
A belated congrats to our friends Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, of Ask a Ninja fame, who will be writing, and Kent directing, a remake of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. I was lucky enough to be standing with Kent when the news broke on The Hollywood Reporter, not because we hang out all the time (although I wish we could), but because of a happy coincidence, as Kent had stopped by our SXSW party that night. I’m sure I was one of the first of many people to freak out and congratulate him that night and the following days — making the jump from web auteurship to a feature film deal is a huge achievement.
Kent and Doug are heroes of ours, and we’ve gotten friendly over the past year or so, especially after both they and Fred spoke at Pixelodeon last year, delivering two of the renegade keynotes of the festival. They’re legendary in the web video space for being one of the few web productions that’s in the black, attracting a year-long sponsorship / revenue sharing deal (which they just renewed) with Federated Media, and smartly merchandising and licensing with an Ask a Ninja book, t-shirts and clothing, and DVDs. What I love about Kent and Doug is that they aim high and know the value of where they are right know, and the knowledge they have. They’ll be keeping the Ninja going, showing the common sense that in Hollywood translates to cunning business savvy. As Kent writes on his blog:
This move is about career. Going into movies gives us access to the top of the Hollywood food chain. Show business is still an aspirational place — web shows want to be cable shows. Cable shows want to be broadcast shows. And broadcast shows want to be films. (And I guess now, films want to be Broadway musicals, but that’s a different story…)
By going to straight to features, the entire showbiz world is still open to us. We’ll be able to move freely up and down the aspirational chain without being pigeonholed as the web guys. And actually we’ll be even more valuable since we have a deep understanding of the new media landscape.
Kent’s right. This is awesome news. And if anyone thinks otherwise, The Ninja will totally kill them.
