Success story
The saga of Ron Jackson and his movie 5 Hour Friends continues.
To refresh your memory (or perhaps to make a whole new memory), Jackson is a man who dreamed of making a movie, literally for decades. And finally, he just did it. He wrote a screenplay about the travails of a womanizing golf fanatic in San Diego and then produced it (with Wayne Jackson) and got Theo Davies to direct it and Tom Sizemore to star in it. You can read my review of it here. (The title refers to length of time it takes to play a round of golf.)
As every budding filmmaker could tell you, however, it turns out that making a movie, as difficult as it may be to believe, is actually the easy part. It’s even harder getting it in front of people’s eyes—although that is now easier than it used to be, thanks to cable, satellite and the internet. But key to Jackson’s dream was to have it play in a real honest-to-gosh cinema. He succeeded with that when it played in cinemas in San Diego last spring.
Of course, not everyone lives in or near San Diego, so that left out quite a few people who might enjoy watching the movie. Well, as of today, people all over North America can see the movie through various on-demand channels.
“It will appear on most major cable outlets like Cox, Charter, Verizon, etc. and most internet outlets like Amazon, Hulu, iTunes, etc.,” says Jackson. “After nearly two years of searching for the right distributor and repairing sound issues this is our moment. It’s been a long time coming.”
With an eye to people (like myself) who don’t happen to reside in the U.S. or Canada, he adds, “Many of you will also be pleased—and surprised—to know that Paramount Pictures—yes, that Paramount—will also distribute the film on international video-on-demand later this year. Should air in all English speaking countries and many foreign language ones as well. Can you believe it? I can barely…”
It does my heart good to see someone achieve his dream after so much work. Now (since we are on the subject of achieving years-old dreams) if I can only convince Ron (or somebody in the movie business) to take a look at my novel.
You can get more info on 5 Hour Friends and the various ways you can watch it at www.5hourfriends.com.
-S.L., 3 February 2015
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