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Is Ghostbusters going indie?

In one of the latest head-scratching ideas from Ghostbusters co-creator Dan Akroyd, actor and indie filmmaker Matthew Gray Gubler (“Criminal Minds”, “(500) Days of Summer”) would be his choice to play a younger, edgier member of the new team in “Ghostbusters 3″.

Where's Venkman?

Can you see where this is going? The original guys get shoved off, so the new blood can take over. It’s a form of passing the torch.

But what if there’s no one to take the torch from?

Akroyd was on the Dennis Miller Show when he made the most surprising comment about the direction of the franchise:

“Ghostbusters is bigger than any one component, although [Bill Murray] was absolutely the lead and was contributive…the concept is much bigger than any individual role.”

So Murray isn’t a necessity to making the movie anymore? That means you might as well forget about Ernie Hudson. Oh wait–they already have.

All that really matters now is that the words “Ghost” and “busters” show up in the title somewhere.

But moving on without Venkman? Without Winston? Going forward with the Gubester, whose funniest movie credit to date is “RV”?

When you are about to pee all over your franchise, remember what Egon said:

Don’t cross the streams!

Filmmakers: Deadline changes

Okay folks- we have a  couple minor deadline changes. We’ve shifted the Withoutabox-only extended deadline from Nov. 21 back to Nov. 17. By doing that we were able to shift our notification date from Dec. 5 back to Nov. 28, giving accepted filmmakers an extra week to make travel arrangements. Regardless, we always encourage people to submit as early as possible… no better day than today!

Earlybird deadline TOMORROW

Filmmakers- don’t forget our first deadline is tomorrow at midnight (August 15). This is a great opportunity to save a few dollars on submission fees. If you can’t make it don’t worry, our fees are reasonable throughout the entire submission process.

2012 SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN

Filmmakers: Start your engines! We are now officially open for submissions for our 2012 season. This will be our 5th year, and it’s going to be our biggest yet! The earlybird deadline ends August 15, so submit early to save a few bucks on the submission fees.

Post-Award interview with The Boy Wonder crew

Boy Wonder took home the prize for Best Narrative Feature (Best Picture) and it was a well-deserved winner. Caleb Steinmeyer played an excellent lead role, and director Michael Morrissey put together an absolutely amazing film. Check out this interview conducted just minutes after they were announced as the winners.

2011 Wrap Up

It’s hard to believe that Festivus FF 2011 is now a thing for the history books. It’s been just under a week since the opening day, and the Festivus team has had a chance to reflect on this past season. We’ve all come to the same conclusion: Festivus Film Festival 2011 was without question our best season yet! This year we improved by every possible measure of success. News coverage was EVERYWHERE, including television, radio, print and web. (See for yourself; coverage from Denver Post, Westword, Onion A.V. Club, Huffington Post, Yahoo! Movies, 303 Magazine and more.) Our partners stepped it up, providing more funding, infrastructure and support. So special thanks to all of you- your contributions were invaluable. We’ve always prided ourselves on quality programming, but yet again we raised the bar this year. The filmmakers were thrilled and refreshed about every aspect of the festival. Our staff worked harder than ever, and their passion for what we do really showed. And of course, the big measure of success: attendance. We broke last year’s record by a wide margin, which is something we’ve so far been able to do every year since we started. Yes, without question, 2011 was the year that Festivus Film Festival cemented itself as an important part of the social/cultural/arts landscape of Denver. So what’s next? Our passion for connecting the Denver audience and talented independent filmmakers remains the same. We’ll continue to provide quality programming for our fans and an amazing experience for our filmmakers.  2011 was our best year yet, but 2012 will be better still! My favorite quote from our first staff meeting for 2012, (which happened the day after the fest ended), “Okay, 2011 was awesome. What do we do to make 2012 even better?” So, thank you filmmakers for being a part of this incredible event, and thank you Denver for comin! We’ll see you again soon.

And the winner is…

We’ll be posting a complete re-cap very soon, but until then, here are our award winners:
Image Award: Trever Alters
Best Editing: Calling on Others
Best Cinematography: The Last Legend
Best Music Video: Tour Life
Best Animation: The Face Shop
Best Experimental: Only in Dreams
Best Short Short: The Line
Best Doc Short: Walla Walla Wiffle
Best Narrative Short: Rain for Morgan
Best Doc Feature: Awakening the Skeena
Best Narrative Feature (Best Picture): Boy Wonder