Filmmaker Curt Hahn takes you way behind the scenes, from how Deadline came to be to its unique distribution strategy.
Great news: Deadline has been held over in Chicago and San Diego!
Plus Deadline opens tomorrow for one week only in Detroit, Toledo, Columbus, OH and Little Rock. So if you live in these cities or know people who do, this is your chance to experience this timely, powerful film that’s touching hearts everywhere it opens.
Get a group of friends together and see why movie-goers say Deadline reminds them of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Deadline Opens from Coast to Coast (& Beyond)
Deadline opens today for one week only in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, Honolulu, San Diego, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. So if you live in these cities or know people who do, this is the weekend to see Deadline!
Then next Friday (April 20th) we'll continue to roll Deadline out to more cities including Detroit, Columbus, OH, Toledo and Little Rock.
"4 Stars! Deadline is a powerful movie with a very strong, Christian redemptive worldview about the search for truth and justice."
~ Renee Green, Movie Guide
“Deadline is an important, terrific movie, with the kind of compelling story and fascinating characters that made The Help so engaging. Beautifully acted and directed.”
~ Dr. Linda Seger, Script Consultant on over 2,000 scripts and author of Making a Good Script Great
“I cannot wait to see Deadline again. It's been so much on my mind since the screening that I am hungry to see, hear, learn more about it. It's a wonderful movie, full of great stories and beautifully executed.”
~ Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer Prize winner, Professor of Journalism, Emory University, Managing Editor, The Civil Rights Cold Case Project
"Curt Hahn has transformed Mark Ethridge’s story into a film that’s a larger heirloom of the American South. Deadline's greatest gift may be its ability to tap into the stains and fault lines of the South, but also into the region’s unfaltering resilience and ability to forgive and redeem."
~ Audra D. S. Burch, The Miami Herald
“Deadline is a powerful movie with a conscience. Once in a while, a movie is made that affects social consciousness and creates a conduit for important change in one’s self, in one’s country. Deadline is one of these movies.”
~ Donna Peerce, Movie Blog
“Deadline packs a powerful punch…a film that goes by quickly but has much to say while it does…appropriately economical when it comes to making its case without belaboring points, but it is not economical with the truth.”
~ Evans Donnell, Art Now Nashville
“I loved Deadline. It touched my heart. No, it touched my soul.”
~ Mike Pandey, Filmmaker and Chair of the steering committee for the International Film Festival of India
$100,000 and we're just getting started!
Deadline fans turned out in such force in Atlanta, Tampa and Indianapolis this weekend that we've been held over for another week in all three cities! We've now crossed the $100,000 threshold at the domestic box office two weeks before our national release on April 13th!
Please forward this to your friends in these cities, post this on Facebook and come see Deadline, a film that movie-goers say reminds them of To Kill a Mockingbird.
And remember, the Deadline premiere tour continues next week in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston.
Thank you for all your support!
This weekend is the most important three days in Deadline's theatrical release.
Deadline opens tomorrow, March 30th, for one week only in Atlanta, Tampa and Indianapolis. How well we do at the box office this weekend will determine how many theaters across the country we'll be in when we open nationally on April 13th.
So if you live in these cities or know people who do, this is the weekend to see Deadline!
What I did on my Spring Break
As I planned the itinerary for the Deadline premiere tour I made sure that we looped back through Nashville at the beginning of my daughter Amelia's Spring Break. That way she could join us on the bus as we went to St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville before another stopover in Nashville.
It was awesome having her with us for the week. She's not only an outstanding student and great young actress (Amelia has a small but pivotal role in Deadline), but she's a joy to be around as well. She enjoyed traveling on the bus (where each bunk has its own DVD player!) and participating in the red carpet meet and greets each night.
Now she's back in school, but we're working on a plan for her to jump back on the bus for the Washington, D.C. premiere. That's the kind of field trip that's a once in a lifetime event.
A Tale of Two Buses
While members of the cast and Deadline team have been touring the country on our tour bus, Mark's wife Kay Ethridge has been on a bus tour of her own, leading a mission trip to Cuba. (Her third.) She sent me this photo and email, which she said I could share with you here.
Dear Curt,
I have been on the "Humble Trip" while all of you have been on the "Ego Trip" as you know. I wanted you to see OUR bus!
Actually, I have enjoyed your blog and after being with Mark this weekend I have learned that instead of being worlds apart as I feared, we have found a lot of common ground in our two distinct experiences the past couple of weeks. Your trip is a mission too, you have a new family of friends who have bonded under close living quarters and unknown adventure circumstances. You are spreading a message of hope, forgiveness and reconciliation not so far from us with our sisters and brothers in Christ in Cuba.
Thanks for arranging such a meaningful, exciting and safe journey to promote the artistic creation you and Mark collaborated on...I am not surprised it is resonating with so many people.
A big Cuban HUG!
Kay
Sending a big HUG back to Kay, and everyone else lucky enough to have found their mission.
18 Premieres, 18 Cities, 18 Days. Our version of March Madness!
Each premiere is unique, with new people to meet in different environments and a variety of Deadline cast and crew members joining us on various parts of the tour.
Now we have a weekend off before heading out on the next leg of the tour. A weekend to be with family and friends, do some laundry, sleep in our own beds, maybe even watch a little basketball.
But an interesting thing has happened on the tour, not unlike being in production on the movie. We’re all out of our usual routine, creating a new rhythm, living in very close quarters, really getting to know one another. When some of our regulars have been gone, even for a day, their absence is immediately felt. And when new folks join us it brings a jolt of energy and excitement.
I hope you have experiences like this in your life. Times when you rip yourself out of your comfortable routine and pour yourself into something you passionately believe in. These are the times of our lives we never forget, vivid memories that infuse the entire journey with meaning.
May yours be as rich as ours.
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into when we began planning our 48 city Deadline Premiere Tour, but I was wrong.
It’s so much better!
Here’s the secret nobody prepared me for: While most filmmakers send their movies off into the world alone, we get to travel with Deadline and meet our audience every night. And what a gift that is!
Meeting church leaders like Pastor Paula White and Pastor Michael Williams, Pastor Clint Brown, Bishop Harold Ray and Pastor Brenda Ray, all of whom brought appreciative church members to Deadline premieres. Getting to know newspaper leaders like Kevin Riley, Bob Gabordi and Frank Denton and devoted reporters like Jack Bass, Audra Burch and Jill Wejnoska. Connecting with passionate community leaders like Celeste Krueger, Hemphill Pride, Caroline Blackwell, Karen Bradberry, Hank Klibanoff, Todd Cregar and Rachel Alterman Wallack. Hearing the stories of so many remarkable people who’ve been moved by Deadline. Feeling the love as audiences thank us for making Deadline and taking the time to bring it to their communities.
This is beyond gratifying. Everything about Deadline has been a gift to me. And connecting with Deadline’s audience night after night has proven to be the sweetest gift of all.
I LOVE NOLA!
New Orleans, Louisiana, that is, where we just had the most wonderful premiere thanks to Pastor Debra Morton of Greater St. Stephen Church.
We had an awesome and appreciative audience made up of people who understood Deadline in their bones. Their questions and comments in the Q&A that followed the premiere literally made us weep, understanding how deeply moved they were by our film.
This is why we made Deadline, for nights like tonight, when people who start the evening as strangers are transformed by a shared experience and become cherished friends joined in the belief that there is always hope. That we can make a difference. We simply have to do it, each of us, standing up against injustice and prejudice, standing up for what is right.
To quote Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Our gratitude to our newspaper hosts knows no bounds.
Without their support our entire release plan of Deadline benefit premieres across the country would not be possible. With their support, we’ve already raised over $30,000 for local charities and we’re just today departing on our bus tour. Doesn’t the bus look great?
Here’s a story that went out nationally from the Scripps Howard News Service.
Film: 'Deadline' rolls out media-savvy story to Southern audiences
And another story that’s been picked up across the country from the AP.
Nashville film inspired by true civil rights story
And then there are the reviews…wow!
'Deadline' is a powerful movie with a conscience
Well-Crafted 'Deadline' Packs Powerful Punch
"4 stars! Deadline A Redemptive Search for Truth.
These stories and many more are posted on our Press page.
