Hello dear backers and citizens of Nightmare City,
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Here's our next, highly anticipated update which took a bit longer because we had a lot of calls and talks with our partners and producers the last few weeks:
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First and foremost, Nightmare City is not dead. Undead, at most ;)
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We are still working hard on our project, but like many other independent film projects, we've encountered some unforeseen obstacles and unfortunate setbacks. It has become considerably difficult to find a decent budget for a Horror film nowadays, especially for a zombie movie. Even renowned filmmakers like George Romero and John Carpenter have to face this problem and even hugely successful projects, like the World War Z sequel, have recently been delayed from studios. Dropping rates from the once massive hit, The Walking Dead, are also not making it easier for us to convince financiers.
As we have previously noted, we're now working on a new strategy to shoot the majority of our film in Puerto Rico, where we could benefit from the appealing tax incentives and exotic locations and atmosphere.
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One of the main difficulties we have to face, like almost all film and genre projects, is that there are in fact only 2 options to make a horror film these days:
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1) Do it with a budget between $300K - $500K USD, with plenty of limitations and without a theatrical release, or with a limited release, or as a TV film.
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2) To get a budget between $2 - $10 million USD you need to have bankable A-list stars attached, such as Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, or Keanu Reeves.
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( Or 3: make a 20,000 USD amateur film with some friends and with your parents' credit card and shoot it in the backyard or basement of your house ^^)
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It has become nearly impossible for filmmakers to get a budget in between these two options from financiers and sales, because of the collapsed DVD market, movie piracy, weak sales, etc.
Unfortunately, there's also that frustrating Catch-22 situation for all filmmakers: In order to get a big budget and green light for a production, companies, distributors and financiers want to see an A-list star attached. But to get such a star on board, you need to have a big budget in place and major funding for a pay-and-play deal.
Over these last few months, our experienced casting director has been doing her best, diligently working, and talking and negotiating with several agents. Our current short list includes popular names like Ron Perlman, Pierce Brosnan, Nathan Fillion, Neve Campbell, Alicia Silverstone, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rosario Dawson, Kurt Russell, Sam Neill, Thomas Jane, as well as cult favorites like Alice Cooper.
We're already in discussions with some of them, and had to learn that financiers have a different view on what we and fans think an attractive "star" would be. While I'm convinced that a star of a popular show like Game Of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Arrow, Sons Of Anarchy, The Walking Dead, or Firefly, would certainly attract more fans and increase the number of viewers, the dark reality is that financiers and distributors delude themselves to believe that names like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, or even Steven Seagal, are still magnets for sales, audiences and box office gold....
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Another obstacle that suddenly arose, which we're currently trying to figure out if it could affect our plans, is the current financial situation of Puerto Rico: http://money.cnn.com/…/puerto-rico-wants-to-file…/index.html
Our partners don't think it will affect our plans seriously, as our production would also bring work and money to Puerto Rico.
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Our partners had some meetings with potential financiers, investors, and distributors in Cannes, and everyone seemed to see lots of commercial potential in this remake and believe in our concept. We're also now in talks with a producer who has produced, sold, and distributed more than 100 films and is very interested in Nightmare City and our other projects. I just spoke with him this weekend. One of his partners has just completed a $37 Million USD film with Keanu Reeves, in Puerto Rico, and is an expert in producing films and acquiring tax incentives there. He's also convinced that with 1 or 2 additional star names we can do this with a bigger budget in Puerto Rico.
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Upon speaking with producers and our partners, after Cannes, we basically would now have 3 options on how to proceed:
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1) Produce our film with a low budget, around $500K USD (500k would have been our planned SFX & makeup budget), and make it a Direct-to-DVD release or a TV film, which would obviously come with various limitations.
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2) Keep on working to attach an A-list actor, get a bigger budget and theatrical release, and making this film without any creative restrictions, similar to the successful remakes of Dawn of the Dead, The Crazies, or Evil Dead.
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3) Try to co-finance the film with equity shares, which means fans can invest and become shareholders with equity funds. However, we would need to raise at least 300K with equity shares to complete the budget and get close to the minimum required of $1 million (with sales, investors, etc) to make it a halfway decent film.
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We also would like to hear your opinions on how you think we should move forward. You're all a big and important part of this project, and we know that all of you are waiting for this film to finally get off the ground (and for your perks) now for a long time, much longer than initially expected. We can certainly understand if some of you are frustrated, worried, and impatient.
For us, there's no turning back, as we are devoted to making this remake the best possible and something every backer will be proud of. We, along with our partners, believe we should still aim for Option 2 and try to get some big-named stars on board, which is not easy, but still achievable. But we now also have some renowned, experienced producers and partners on our side, which could make it easier for us to negotiate with agents and get an A-list actor or actress attached.
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But this means that we will need some more time, as well as your patience and your continuing faith in us and support of our project. We want to work on and figure out all three possible options, during the rest of the Summer (no holidays for us). We will converse with agents, partners, and possible financiers and investors over the next 2 to 3 months, to see how big we can finally get and if we can attach 1 or 2 A-list stars. Actually, we only really need 1 more bankable name attached to get a green light and finally launch this production.
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The next few months will be spent having meetings, talks, negotiations, research, and doing everything we can to strive toward and fight for a decent budget, as well as doing our best to attach some more high-caliber stars.
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We have now also a renowned German scientist and virologist on board as scientific consultant who also worked as a consultant for "28 Days Later".
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We're also still, simultaneously, working on 3 other projects including our TV series (which has already sparked the interest of 2 networks), an Action-Horror movie with lots of popular action and martial arts stars, and a Blumhouse-style paranormal Horror-Thriller. We hope we can tell you more about these projects soon, and want to give our backers the chance to be part of these projects, as well.
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Thank you again so much for your unonditional support and patience and for hanging in there through this long, exhausting journey as we are working hard on bringing this movie to life. We're so grateful to have such a fantastic, loyal community and will do our best to not disappoint you and to make this a cool movie that all of you will be proud of.
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As always, if any of you wants to help us, or if someone has any ideas, advice, suggestions, or questions, you can reach out to us anytime via email: office(at)nightmarecity(dot)tv
06-06-2017