Assassination of a High School President Movie Trailer

Posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta

At the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Yari Film Group premiered Brett Simon’s Assassination of a High School President, a film noir mystery set inside the world of a John Hughes-style High School comedy. (half way between Rian Johnson’s Brick and Veronica Mars) It quickly emerged as one of the underdogs on the schedule to become one of the most buzzed about films at the festival (read some of the review quotes here).

Unfortunately, Yari Film Group was forced into involuntary bankruptcy, and the film has been sitting on the shelf ever since. This has presented a very serious problem for theatrical distribution, and because of the legalities of bankruptcy court, the timing of this economic downturn and a whole slew of other worst-case-scenarios, Assassination might be going direct-to-DVD. Hope isn’t lost quite yet, the bankruptcy court meets in late-July, and the fate of the Yari-owned films will be decided at that time. I hope someone comes to their senses and gives this movie a theatrical release of some kind.

A trailer for the film has finally been released online, but you should be warned… this is far from a good representation of the movie. Actually, it’s quite bad. But with all this legal mess going on, I’m surprised there is a trailer at all. It’s presented in full screen aspect ratio, the sound seems a bit off, and is cut with low royalty soundtrack music. Hopefully those of you who have been interested in this film will be able to see between all the unfortunate trailer production issues. The film is really so much better than this. Read the reviews, a lot of people really loved this film. This trailer cut is a butcher job. Watch the trailer embedded after the jump.

Comments

Poland626

ummm... pretty OK trailer. Didn't like the gum at the end bit.

Brian Rodden

This movie looks way worse than both Brick and Veronica Mars...maybe worth a rental but that's it...

BigM1ke

Brick was awesome!!

Hat

That movie sucked. Couldn't handle how pretentious it was.

Eric C

looks awful.

JasonSearcy

I thought it looked really good, I'll definitely see this.

Justin

I don't think "direct-to-DVD" is a very bad thing, though. Many good movies just don't have the means for a theatrical (even limited) release and probably would end up costing the movie more than it was worth.

I'd rather see a movie that's exactly what the creator envisioned go straight to DVD than one that had like four different editors, months and months of delays, and was THEN given an extremely limited release in theaters for like seven weeks (example: even though Fanboys was eventually released in its original form, that movie was delayed nearly two years, went through that whole cancer storyline/Darth Weinstein crap, etc. and then it never gets to more than 45 theaters for 2 months).

I understand the compulsion for someone who liked a movie to want that good movie (I'll take your word on it, Peter) to reach as large an audience as it could but the direct-to-home video market is not the purgatory so many people think it is. Many great movies never took off, popularly, until they got on home video (whether it's something like Office Space or even Shawshank Redemption). I think direct-to-DVD (or direct-to-iTunes or whatever eventually becomes the standard) is probably where a lot of indie film is headed.

That being said, if this movie is this good, I would love to see it in theaters.

Jordinho

You just stole this post right out of my fingers. Good job saving me 15 minutes.

freemachine

Had me curious at first, but completely lost me when the guy ran over the dog. I just don't find that shit very funny, not even in a black comedy sort of way.

jason B

i'm taking peter's word that this film is solid - despite that atrocious trailer. but yeah, holy shit was that awful.

Captain_Howdy

Something feels stagnant here... rolling my eyes at the whole teen-high-school-Diablo-written stuff, while strangely intrigued at the same time. I'll probably just wait for the DVD... Oh, wait...

gram

why are they all british?

Ryz

Maybe just maybe its set in Britain but I could be wrong.

MickJ

I'm taking your word for it. Loved V Mars and like Brick a lot too. Looks can be deceiving, I'm hoping this is the opposite of the trend of "well-cut awesome trailer, meet mediocre disappointing movie."

Eric Eisenberg

Wow, this looks like a total ripoff of Brick...except bad

Matt_Bacon

Peter, I can't take your word for this... If it was good, it wouldn't be going direct-to-DVD...

Peter Sciretta

Matt, you don't need to take my word, click the link and read the opinions of five other credible critics.

But that aside, you obviously didn't read the article. The reason why this movie might be headed direct to dvd has nothing to do with the quality of the film, or even the film itself. The film's distributor Yari declared bankruptcy, and the court hearing is going on in July. All of Yari's upcoming slate probably won't hit theaters. Sony has a deal for the DVD distribution. I don't want to get into the legalities involved, but the amount of money it would cost another distributor to buy the rights after the hearing is probably not enough to risk on a indie release.

Matt_Bacon

oh, I understand why it's not going direct-to-DVD, but I misinterpreted something. I thought other companies could grab the movie currently, but apparently that's only the case after the decision of the film is made?

Knock me sideways for not understanding that. This trailer just didn't look good, and I'm all "taking their word"ed out. The last three Netflix movies I saw were recommended to me and I ended up disliking them/ finding them boring. Don't take it personally. I'll probably netflix this, but not because of the trailer, that's for sure...

I'm pretty sure I've contradicted myself, but I had no idea this legal thing kept this movie from going into theaters. I assumed it was because it was bad... To assume makes an... well, we all know the rest.

nycTrax

When a company goes into bankruptcy proceedings its debts are effectively frozen until a judge sorts out who gets paid out of whatever assets the company has remaining.

Assume that Yari owes a certain amount of money to vendors, cast, etc. associated with this film. In fact, the exact amount of money owed may even be in dispute.

So...until that gets sorted out by the bankruptcy court, it's highly probably that no other distributor is going to be willing to take the film and absorb any unknown/potential debts or liabilities associated with it. It's too risky.

Matt_Bacon

Mmhmm, I believe I understand better, now. Direct-to-DVD actually makes more sense in a way...

nycTrax

Theatrical or direct-to-DVD, it's immaterial to a potential distributor. Either way, no one will touch the movie until a judge clears any potential liabilities a distributor might assume if it takes on the film.

You wouldn't buy a house until you made sure that any outstanding property taxes had been paid, or that the basement wasn't leaking radon, right?

It's the same thing with a movie.

It's just business.

Once that's cleared up, THEN a potential distributor will decide whether it's worthy of a theatrical release or if it will get dumped direct-to-DVD.

And trust me, direct-to-DVD is frequently the poorer avenue for distribution. A box-office release is a massive ad campaign that fuels the eventual DVD release. The box office has been surging lately, and IF the movie can find its audience it can make back it's P&A with both box office and eventual DVD/On-Demand (which is ad-fueled by the prior box office release).

Yes, a DVD-only release is much cheaper...but the rewards are usually (though not always) smaller.

Peter Sciretta

Sony already owns the dvd distribution rights for all of Yari's films. But Sony entered into that deal with the understanding that Yari would provide some advertising on the theatrical release of the film....

nycTrax

Cool. Thanks for clearing that up. It will be interesting to see how/if this movie moves forward.

It will also be interesting to see if Yari Film Group can get its house in order. He's had money issues in the past. I recall there being some problems with checks being sent out on Crash (which I thought was a terrible film, btw...but it certainly appealed to the West Side of L.A.!)

Great site, btw. You think there's any chance you'll be selling it Nikki Finke/DHD style for 14Mil anytime soon? ;-)

Peter Sciretta

Thanks. I don't see any sale in the immediate future, especially in a down market, but you never know.

nycTrax

Well good luck (market will eventually turn around) And I love the iPhone version as well. Cheers.

GreatBigLion

This is getting really squished up.

StrWrsTrshCmpctr

|i gtta bd flng abt ths|

Eric C

to be fair, Slumdog was supposed to go to direct dvd,

Matt_Bacon

yeah... this is a bit different because it already had a distributor... i just didn't understand the legal stuff. Mix that with a bad trailer and I was a bit skeptical... now I know...

Sketch

It seems like there's a couple of guys from All the Boys Love Mandy Lane flick. Meh to them.

Tristan

Yeeeah, that trailer sucked. There are moments that make it look halfway decent- the pirate thing, the dog thing- but all in all, that was just a terrible trailer.

And the gum thing just.... Just no.

Rena

That trailer was pretty damn awful

Ashley

I'll see this based solely on the fact that the kid from Rocket Science plays the lead and he's probably one of the most promising young actors to appear on the scene in a very long time. Really looking forward to seeing this movie, mediocre trailer aside.

Darrell

Looks lame. Not interested.

totallymorgan

This trailer is awful, but I think this movie has potential.

Chris

This is a rough cut of a trailer. It has not got completed audio.

The aim of this trailer is to make the film appeal to a broad audiance.

cellchild

a comic brick rip off with mischa barton as a cheerleader? i'll pass

Brandon

The O.C meets The Usual Suspects? Pass

GregoryV

I'm still looking forward to this film but this trailer looks really bad. Besides, I absolutely had faith in the Yari film group.

GregoryV

I meant, I have NO FAITH with the Yari film group.

tina

i love luke grimes in assassination of a high school president

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