Let's get metaphysical

So where and when did you first screen?

Arntz: We started the film off last February in a little town called Yelm, Wash., where a couple of us were living at the time. We pleaded with the local theater, on our knees, and said, "Look, we know enough people in town. We can sell it out for a couple of weeks." First they said no, no, no -- but then they said, "OK, kids, we'll give you a week, but don't count on it." And we ended up having a seven-week run there. Then the Bagdad Theater in Portland, Ore., where they'd been saying no to us all along, started saying, Oh, these box-office numbers are kind of interesting. Then they said, "OK, we'll give you a week, but you have to have 1,600 people show up. Otherwise we're going to pull it -- and don't hold your breath, kid, we're probably going to have to pull it." So instead of getting 1,600 the first week, we got 4,500. And every week it went up 500 until, at its peak, about 7,000 people a week were seeing this film. It ended up playing there for 18 weeks.

All word of mouth? Did you do any advertising at all?

Vicente: Very little. We did an NPR show in Oregon, which was great and helped a lot. What mostly happened is people saw this film and just told everyone else about it. Every time we go to screenings we ask if people heard about the film through word of mouth or the press and it's almost always 95 percent word of mouth.

Kind of like that old Clairol commercial, "I told two friends, and then she told two friends, and so on, and so on" -- and the screen breaks into more and more people.

Vicente: [Laughs.] Yeah, that's true.

Arntz: And people are seeing the film three, four, five times. Apparently, someone in Seattle has seen it 30 times. That's a little scary.

Well, you finally got the movie industry's attention. What was their initial reaction?

Arntz: The initial reaction from the industry was basically, There's no audience for the film. Get lost. And that was across the board: theater owners, bookers and, of course, distributors. We were way below their radar. But when you look at the box-office numbers, they just leap off the page. We don't hit our peak attendance until five and six weeks into the run, and then the attendance hangs for 12, 15, 18, 20 weeks. That just doesn't happen in the film business. And at a certain point, the numbers were so extreme that distributors started watching.

Enter Samuel Goldwyn and Roadside Attractions.

Arntz: They distributed "Super Size Me" and were already watching the market. They called us up and said, "We don't know what you guys are doing, but we've never seen numbers like this." We struck up a partnership with them. We told them about the grassroots marketing we'd been doing and they said, "Well, whatever you're doing, don't stop." So now we have a two-pronged marketing thing. They're taking on all the mainstream marketing that they know how to do, and we're still doing all the grassroots. We found the perfect partner.

I'm interested in how your audience extends beyond metaphysics lovers to more mainstream moviegoers who go into it not knowing what to expect and seem to leave surprised and happy they saw it.

Arntz: Yeah, preaching to the choir is great and everything, but the huge payoff with the film is the people in the mainstream. We used to tell everyone to tell all their friends they think would be into the film to go see it. And then we stopped saying that. Now we say, Tell everyone because you can never tell who's going to respond.

Any unexpected fans?

Arntz: A friend was in a Gold's Gym in L.A. and he was walking by a couple of really big weightlifter guys there -- you know, with muscles on top of muscles. They were talking about the film and how great it was. My friend just kind of stopped and thought, "Holy Moses, I would never have thought these big beef-packers would be interested in this film." But there's a lot of people my friend calls metaphysical lost souls. People who, once they get exposed to this information, immediately get it. And they go with it. But this stuff's never been presented in a way like we're doing -- accessible and kind of fun -- and it doesn't have the dogma. It's safe. It's not like attending an encounter group where everyone is going to turn and stare at you and say, "What do you think?" It's a movie.

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