In the higher loft of the newly opened Palace Rooms Lounge, a small group of film buffs, civil servants, enterprise homeowners and group members gathered to hear in regards to the newest alternative for the ever-growing sector of the Oklahoma film business.
The filming of the Martin Scorsese film ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ in 2019 introduced in additional than $19 million in financial growth and magnified Bartlesville’s recognition within the movie business.
Producers Chris Butcher, a Bartlesville native, and Steven Patchin plan to shoot their subsequent characteristic movie, ‘Creator,’ in Bartlesville and are searching for a $1.2 million funding to make that occur.
‘Creator’ is a horror movie they hope captures a little little bit of nostalgia for the previous classics that “scares the s*** out of audiences long after they’ve left the theater.”
Nick Sanford, author/director of the venture, started the night speaking about his need to recreate the magic and emotion that an viewers skilled when watching ‘The Exorcist.’
“I’m just fascinated by the reaction that this movie caused, you know, all the stories about people fainting, the people passing out in theaters, ambulances being there, Boston tried to ban it,” stated Sanford. “Whether you loved it or hated it, you were alive.”
Sanford’s ardour for making movies began from an early age by flooding his father or mother’s sunroom to recreate a scene from ‘Titanic’ and remaking ‘Hook” by sword-fighting his father with an umbrella. He made 45 short films from elementary school through high school, attended the Oklahoma City Community College film program and has completed two feature-length films available to stream online.
These three Oklahoma filmmakers recently released ‘Elusive,’ a comedy about the hunt for Bigfoot in the backwoods of Oklahoma, with screenings around Oklahoma, including Bartlesville. The movie is available for streaming on Amazon Prime and Tubi.
Patchin believes the experience gained and success with ‘Elusive,’ with a cost of only $35,000, is proof that they can make a higher budget feature-length horror film.
“The first $25,000 in funds is known as growth financing,” said Patchin. “What that is going to permit us to do goes to find a way to get casting.”
Once securing development financing, they can land the talent, and the talent they seek could build enough excitement for the project to get them to their funding goals.
The filmmakers have their eyes set on Andi Matichak of the “Halloween” franchise, Rory Culkin, who was in ‘Signs’ and ‘Scream 4’, and finally, Crispin Glover, who is most known for his role as George McFly in ‘Back to the Future’ but has seen much more recent success in ‘Willard’ and the TV show ‘American Gods.’
With a strong genre cast of known and marketable names in the film, they hope to establish a buzz about their movie that they plan to carry into a word-of-mouth and social media engagement strategy to market the film in a more organic approach that no amount of money spent on marketing could buy.
They admit that films are a risk and there is never a guarantee of profit, but in the end, it’s about telling stories that the filmmaker and investors what to see.
“Very excited to see a chance for a punk rock indie model native impartial movie being made in Bartlesville,” said Josh Wright, a local videographer and social media marketer.
The ideal plan to start filming could be as early as January of 2023, with an eight-week production schedule and a theatrical release in October of the same year.
Even with this movie being considered small, it could still impact Bartlesville’s economy.
Visit Bartlesville estimates a film like this could bring in $20,000 in sales tax and $344,000 in local spending, which would have a ripple effect of almost $800,000 in economic impact.
“We have a actually wealthy rising movie business. It’s good for us to domesticate Oklahoma filmmakers,” said Maria Gus, executive director of Visit Bartlesville. “We is probably not ready to have a main movement image yearly, however smaller ones are a nice stream of financial growth.”
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