(The First In An Ongoing Series: “The Joy Of Photoshop,” Part 1)

Many of you have asked how Vicki and I met. I figured that a picture’s worth a thousand words. It was a crazy situation and I was there at the right place, right time. Let’s just say she likes the bad boys… my cousin Tye was left out in the cold. He seemed a little skeptical of her hairstyle anyway. And yes, I shot Greedo, he didn’t shoot me, thank you very much.

I’m very proud, but I’ll let Hollywood Reporter do the talking:

HOODWINKED TOPS DVD SALES CHART
“‘Hoodwinked,’ the animated retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, scored an upset victory on the DVD sales chart for the week ending May 7, narrowly beating 20th Century Fox’s “The Family Stone.” “Hoodwinked,” from Genius Products, grossed $51.2 million in theaters, while the Fox romantic comedy generated $60.1 million. Both titles hit DVD last week. “The Family Stone” finished second on VideoScan’s First Alert chart, followed closely by Paramount’s “Last Holiday,” another new release, at No. 3. (Thomas K. Arnold)”

We couldn’t squeak to the top spot in theaters, thanks to “Glory Road’s” narrow victory, but we did it in DVD! A BIG THANKS to all the fans who went out and got their copy this week.

Audiences have a wide variety of reactions to “Hoodwinked.” Everyone has a different favorite character or joke. But some people even see a different moral to the story. This is ironic and even poignant, since this is a story about varied observations of the exact same event.

One of the most unusual observations has come from an editorial by Timothy Sexton (Read it HERE). The writer Mr. Sexton found our film to be an incredibly subversive statement on big business. He writes:

“When it’s finally revealed who the true villain of the film is, that character takes on all the attributes of the exploitation capitalist business owner that American media have turned into folk heroes, but who are in reality the worst kind of villain.
Proponents of capitalism love to point out that their system is preferable to communist systems because in a free enterprise system you have competition. Competition is what drives innovation and keeps prices reasonable. Except, of course, every capitalist owner wants nothing more than to create a monopoly. You see it every day: one big company buying up another company.”

He goes on to write about how, CLEARLY, the film’s creators wanted to show how evil capitalism can become:

“Hoodwinked turns from a movie that questions the validity of absolute truth into a movie that maintains an absolute truth: capitalism that runs amok without regulation is detrimental to society. The great hype that free enterprise as a system engenders competition and innovation is a lie and the villain of Hoodwinked is the personification of that truth.”

Whoa. Did we say all that? Kind of, I guess. We just thought it was a pretty convenient evil scheme we’d seen in most James Bond movies and Bugs Bunny cartoons. The big power-hungry guy always wants to shut down the little guys and run them out of business. Come to think of it, that’s also the plot of every single episode of “The A-Team.”

If Mr. Sexton sees my movie as a sermon against mega-corporations monopolizing America, that’s fine. But our villain is just as easily the face of every dictator in history, or every schoolyard bully who is compensating for low self-esteem, or any Mafia boss who dominates by either absorbing or wiping out his competition. Hey, if you look at an abstract painting and see the devil in a red splotch, that’s your prerogative. That’s what’s so cool about art when it’s put in front of an audience.

Then Sexton gives us the grand-daddy of all proclamations:

“Hoodwinked, that silly little cartoon about Little Red Riding Hood, turns out to be the most subversive movie released nationwide since Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Wow! Put that on the posters! I guess a movie’s message is only partially supplied by the filmmaker. The other part is what you take with you into the theater. As our frog detective Nicky Flippers says, “If a tree falls in the forest, you get three stories: yours, mine and the tree’s.” So I guess I’m proud to be seen as such a subversive filmmaker, even if I never knew I was.

Hey, don’t look at me. I’m just the tree.

Many of you have already gone out and bought your “Hoodwinked” DVD’s (as you should). But apparently there are a few different versions and promotions for it, depending on where you buy.

Being the writer, director and creator of this movie, naturally I am the last to know. I really didn’t know what would even BE on the DVD until I went out and bought my own copy. That’s right. I had to buy my own movie.

But I digress.

From what I have been told, there is a special TWO DISC version, available only at WALMART. This was to get prime placement (see massive, kick-butt display, pictured above). I must inform you that the second “bonus disc” is basically the Behind the Scenes special and an old project of mine called “Wobots.” So for those of you who already own “Wobots,” you’ll be buying it twice. What I’m really ticked about is that this two-disc Walmart version is the ONLY place you can get the half-hour Behind The Scenes special. Again, being the writer-director, I was naturally not consulted on this. It really is a nice piece, so pick it up there if you want to see it.

Then if you buy the DVD at TARGET, you get a “comic book” with it. I use the term “comic book” in quotes, since I believe it is just a smaller version of the “Hoodwinked” book created by Council Oak books. The book is a scrapbook layout, telling the story with lots of stills from the film. But it’s not a comic book. Not in the coolest sense.

And then you can purchase the DVD anywhere else and just get the movie with all the features that come on the single disc. This is a pretty complete disc, it just doesn’t have the Behind The Scenes special. Instead, it has a very watered-down 12 minute piece called “How An Animated Film Gets Made.” Several of the key filmmakers are suspiciously absent, but it’s still a decent documentary.

There were many other features that we thought were going to be on the disc, such as some art galleries and the lost (and fully animated) song, “Woods Go Round.” Maybe if the DVD sells well enough, we’ll be able to get a Collector’s Edition with all the whistles and bells on one product. But until then, go out and get one of these versions at a fine retailer near you.

I just got home from the Saturn Award, hosted by the Academy for Science Fiction and Fantasy Films.

This was a fun night for a geek like me, with “Hoodwinked” nominated in the Best Animated Film category. Since my film was a long shot, this afforded me the chance to be a fly on the wall at my first real awards show. Highlights included seeing Joss Whedon, Ray Harryhausen, Chris Nolan and William Katt, “The Greatest American Hero” (is THAT geeky enough for you?).

I got to chat with “Star Wars” producer Rick McCallum and met Jon Favreau. That was cool. I also couldn’t help congratulating James Callis (“Battlestar Galactica’s” Gaius Baltar). But mostly, Vicki and I just sat and watched the parade and enjoyed our gift bags.

All of the future films I want to make fall into this category, so it was good to case the room and see what the all the cool kids are doing.

Could there be anything more geeky than waiting at Tower Records in the middle of the night to buy your OWN movie? Probably not. But my “Hoodwinked” crew and I did it anyway. We toasted to its success at the Blue Yonder offices just a few hours before, and then went to stand in line… with a lot of other folks who were probably there for the new “Tool” CD.

Vicki and I make the purchase. Check out the cashier on the right. Man, he is impressed. I think he is just stunned that more than two people are buying a kids’ movie at midnight.

The whole gang at the Pasadena store: Friends, family, filmmakers. This was the first time we had seen the finished product, and in my completely unbiased opinion, it’s beautiful. The people at Genius Products did a very nice job. Fun menus, beautiful transfer, just a great product overall. I have to still remind myself that I create in such a mass-audience medium. It is still amazing to think that anyone, anywhere can go out and get our movie today.