Josh Munds is the director of Peeping Todd, a darkly funny new musical about a peeping Tom (Chris Alan Evans) obsessed with a young woman (Mabel Thomas). In the piece below, he describes how the film found its audience and skipped the traditional distribution model.
“How come he don’t want me, man?”
When Will Smith’s character in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air uttered those words about his father, it tugged at my tiny boy heart strings. It was one of the most gut-wrenching moments in television history. Even as a kid watching it, I understood the feeling of belonging. The feeling of acceptance. Fast forward to now as a ripe 26 years old (don’t look that up), and that quote has never been more true to me than it is now.
Not because my father abandoned me… no, it’s much worse. It’s because big distribution companies didn’t want my film, Peeping Todd – a dark comedy musical about a peeping Tom (named Todd) who is obsessed with a woman named Claire who doesn’t even know he exists. So a totally normal, family friendly idea. What’s not to like?
You might be thinking to yourself, “This whole Fresh Prince/abandoned dad thing was a terrible comparison.” Well, you’re wrong, I’m right. And I’ll tell you why. You are your dad’s kid, but when you make a film, that film is your kid. Your baby… poopy diapers and all.
So when tons of distribution companies constantly say no, it’s like your dad leaving you after a wonderful day of bonding and ice cream… then he comes back just long enough to kick you in the face and remind you he’s still leaving.
I say all that in jest, but the feeling of rejection can sting. Thankfully, before we even shot Peeping Todd, we knew this film might require a self-distribution model. If you’ve seen the film you might understand why. While we were planning it, we built out the worst-case scenario in our minds. So when the day inevitably came and many distributors said no, it wasn’t a rug pull. It was more of an awkward magical carpet ride, without any actual magic.
It reminds me of Tommy Boy, where Chris Farley’s character, Tommy, wants to order chicken wings in a restaurant, but the kitchen is closed. He has all the confidence in the world to ask for wings and risk getting rejected, because he knows he has pizza in the trunk of his car. This is us eating our trunk pizza.
Were we successful in cutting out the evil middle man distributor?
Absolutely… not. In fact, we had great conversations with several distributors. Once they told us Peeping Todd wasn’t a fit, they’d almost always refer us to another company that might like it – like a less fun game of hot potato. Or, worse, hacky sack. But these conversations did lead us in the right direction. It also led us to a realization:
If we’re going to go with a distributor, it’s gotta be someone who gets this film. The right partner. Unfortunately, PureFlix and Christian Mingle both rejected us immediately, so we went with a more secular, sin-adjacent company. (Fingers crossed, I can still get Kirk Cameron for the Peeping Todd sequel.)
Speaking of sin-adjacent: Once the Provo, Utah-based genre festival FilmQuest accepted our film, we had a feeling we’d found the perfect home for Peeping Todd. Boy, were we right. Peeping Todd had a fantastic showing. It was exactly the audience we had been looking for.
FilmQuest really changed the direction of our conversations. We were no longer reaching out to people… they were reaching out to us. We felt like Pedro Pascal with a cute dog in Central Park… just adorably sexy. In fact, a company out of France, which had distributed the indie hit Hundreds of Beavers in that territory, asked us for a screener of the film and ultimately signed on as our first partner. I always knew the French were my kind of people. They like bread. Match made in heaven.
Another blessing that came out of FilmQuest was a connection with ScreamBox, a genre-forward streaming platform with a built-in audience of people who love these kinds of midnight movies. We licensed off our streaming rights to them for an exclusive window. (Subscribe now to see our film when it arrives soon.)
Peeping Todd was always about us betting on ourselves. Maintaining the marketing and messaging of the film. At least that’s what we’re telling ourselves. The point is, it took a lot of nos to get the few yeses that really moved the needle. We never hired a sales agent; we just knocked on every door we could find, ourselves.
What types of movies should you make to guarantee distribution?
The truth is, it’s hard for everyone right now. The massive “indie” festivals are leaning more and more into celebrity-driven projects. Distributors are floundering and films that years ago would have gotten big MGs (minimum guarantees) are only getting revenue share, back-end deals. Put simply, you probably won’t ever see money, and if you do, it won’t be much. So the out-of-the-box, Jack-in-the-box strategies are the ones that seem to be working right now.
Gone are the days of pouring sweat equity into pre-production, production and post and then having someone say, “We’ll take it from here, kid.” You have to put just as much, if not more, work into the release of your film. (Special thanks to Alexander Jeffery, who helped us immensely with the film, for helping me with the smart stuff in this article).
How does one self-distribute a film? What a messy question. Why did I ask that to myself? Our current strategy is building an audience through genre festivals and engaging posts on social media. Shocker, right?
It helps that my wife is a content creator with around 3 million followers across platforms — follow @MelissaKristinTV! — who can help us promote and find any crossover interest between her millennial nostalgia audience and people who enjoy stalker musicals. (We’ll see how that goes.) But that aside, one very helpful tool has been Letterboxd. This simple “rate-a-movie” app has catapulted indie films into the faces of millions.
“If you build it, film bros will come.” — Kevin Costner, probably.
However, companies like Bitmax allow you to go directly to your audience on the platforms where people actually buy and rent movies. Many distributors say they’ll market your film, but often they don’t, while still taking a 20-40% cut of your profits. I’m not great with numbers, but 40% seems like a lot.
This is why you need a film community – a village of people whose shared goal is simply making stuff.
Peeping Todd is the zombie child of a lot of talented people who all wore several hats during production. From Chris Alan Evans, who played Todd and co-wrote the film, to the aforementioned Alexander Jeffery, who was our cinematographer and colorist and one of the key editors. Everyone did more than just one job to make it work.
So if you’re reading this and are seeking distribution… maybe don’t. Or do. There’s no right answer. Knock doors, send a bunch of emails, hassle loved ones for money, and most importantly, if your dad does abandon you, just know you’ll always have Uncle Phil.
Peeping Todd is now available on video on demand and arrives soon on ScreamBox. You can follow the film on @peepingtoddmovie on Instagram.
Main image: Peeping Todd stars Chris Alan Evans and Mabel Thomas