One of the reasons Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy was possible is because of the warm-up work WETA did on the HERCULES and XENA series. Fathom’s the same way, producing animation for broadcast and industrial clients since 1994. They took two years creating a proof-of-concept test, ninety seconds of animation that gave Adler and his team the confidence and the financial muscle to take on the challenge of making a movie completely outside the Hollywood system.
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Right now, the thing I would encourage you to spend time looking at, particularly if you’re interested in the technological side of animation, is the Digital Dailies. What you’ll see is a group of people all working together to do something that accepted wisdom says they shouldn’t be able to do. Normally, when people talk about independent films, they’re talking about dark, edgy material for adults. DELGO may be an optimistic fable aimed squarely at an all-audiences market, but make no mistake: it’s as risky as anything that unspooled at Sundance this year, if not more so based on the size of the stakes they’re gambling.
And if that risk pays off in the end, then maybe ten years from now, some other group of determined artists will be citing Marc Adler and Jason Maurer and the entire DELGO crew as their inspiration as they follow their own dreams.
The best part, there is no review for Delgo on the Ain’t It Cool Site.
Not to mention an opening day of $125,000. Broken down further? 1,200 theater release= $58 per theater.
Which means it beat Gran Tornino (6 theaters), Doubt (15 theaters), The Reader (8 theaters) and Frost/Nixon (39 theaters) on Friday.
So, it at least has that going for it.