"Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope" was among the first few movies planned using Tugg for screening at Ann Arbor's Quality 16. (Comicconmovie.com Courtesy Photo)
Editor
When Tugg.com co-creator Nicolas Gonda was traveling the world doing production work with directors Terrence Malick and Steven Soderbergh, his main concern was the longevity of these films’ theatrical runs.
That questioning led him and his colleague Pablo Gonzalez to create a way for more people to see more movies. Enter Tugg.com, a crowdsourcing platform that allows fans to curate their favorite movies on local theaters and big screens.
“There are a lot of inefficiencies in getting a film out to a distributor,” said Gonzalez, 33, the chief operating officer and co-founder of Tugg.com. “When you think about the audience and the theaters, we both want the same things: having a movie enjoy a theatrical run without too many roadblocks.”
Tugg.com was founded earlier this year with the idea that all films should be equal in terms of their theatrical run, even if the pictures came out decades ago. Like the widely-popular crowdsourcing website kickstarter.com, patrons can pick or add movies to the Tugg database. Once Tugg recognizes the film you want to show, the next step is getting a theater on board.
In February, Tugg signed on multiple theater exhibitors including Alamo Drafthouse, AMC Theaters, Bow Tie Cinemas, Cinemark Theaters, Goodrich Quality Cinemas, Rave Cinemas and Regal Cinemas.
With theaters in tow, the Tugg platform allows curators to pick a time and date on a weekday to show the film of their choice. From an exhibitor’s perspective, filling out these lame-duck days is a much-needed boost to the industry.
“From a marketing platform, it’s great to put a movie out there and have people demand it,” said Kelly Owens, a marketing manager for Goodrich Quality Theaters. “When we’re playing movies during the week, not many people are coming out for films on a Monday or Thursday evening. Tugg helps fill those spots for us.”
However, there is one small catch: In order to have the film shown, a total of 35 people must sign on to see it via Tugg by a deadline of a week before the showing.
“If there is an audience for it and you provide them for a theater on a weekday, it’s easy to fit in a show like that,” Owens said.
To find out more about Tugg’s system, visit http://tugg.com for more details.
