[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Brandon Loran Maxwell, Writer, Speaker, Prize Winning Essayist, Film Director, and Entrepreneur: Last night I was at an event in Hollywood and they said Mexican-Americans don’t go see movies but that wasn’t the case for our film. We showed, we sold out every theater that we did. I think we sold out 27 of the 35.
Film Courage: Brandon, which movie theater did you contact first?
Brandon: I believe it was AMC in Downtown LA. That was our first film screening. Our initial plan was just to do one screening, that was the plan, we were just going to do one screening, get word of mouth out online but that quickly turned into dozens of screenings after that.
We only had plans for one screening.
Film Courage: And you called the theater or you emailed them?
Brandon: I contacted the theater. I asked them what it would cost to rent out the theater for a couple hours and to have a private event so we can put up some posters, invite the media along and things like that. They gave me a price and we worked it out.
Film Courage: Would you mind please sharing what the price was, for what is 3 hours?
Brandon: Sure, I don’t remember what it was for that exact theater but now we went on and did a lot of theaters after that. If you want me to discuss that a little bit I can.
Film Courage: I was curious, what does this cost?
Brandon: We rented out that theater. If I had to guess we probably paid maybe three grand [$3,000] or something like that for 3 hours or something like that. Once the film played a lot of people were excited about the film. A lot of people were tweeting about it and mentioning it on social media.
We quickly decided to rent another theater. We put up the money. Again every theater is a little bit different, but it tends to range between $2,000 and $3,500 for anywhere between 200 to 400 seats.
We sold out the next screening that we did and so we did it again and then we sold out again. From that point was when we started to realize that maybe we had a film on our hands that was going to be popular. We kept getting calls from different cities and so we started renting out theaters and playing them in different cities.
What happened was because we had sold all of them out, we actually reached a point where the theaters would no longer rent to us. Theaters started…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
WATCH ‘AMERICAN HOMEBOY’
MORE VIDEOS WITH BRANDON LORAN MAXWELL
CONNECT WITH BRANDON LORAN MAXWELL
Youtube.com/user/bloranmaxwell
About:
Brandon Loran Maxwell is a writer, speaker, prize winning essayist, film director, and entrepreneur. His writings and commentary have appeared at The Hill, Salon, Townhall, The Washington Examiner, The Oregonian, and The Foundation For Economic Education, among others. In 2022, his writings were cited at the U.S. Supreme Court (United States Of America vs. Helaman Hansen). In addition, Brandon regularly speaks on a variety of social topics, and has been cited or profiled by outlets such as The Los Angeles Times, Vox, NPR, The Washington Post, The Blaze, and The Oregonian. His personal essay “Notes From An American Prisoner” was awarded a Writer’s Digest prize in 2014, and his one-act play “Petal By Petal” about drug and alcohol addiction was performed at The Little Theater in 2009. He holds a B.S. in political science and resides on the West Coast.
Advertisement – contains affiliate links
(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)
More affiliates:
Camera we use for interviews – https://buff.ly/3rWqrra
Sound we use for interviews – https://amzn.to/2tbFlM9
Other books on Amazon that Film Courage recommends – https://buff.ly/3o0oE5o
