Troubled ‘Tenure’ Set for September Release

Luke Wilson

A mixed bag of news regarding Luke Wilson’s next film, Tenure. The college faculty romcom from writer-director Mike Million also stars David Koechner (Anchorman), Gretchen Mol (The Ten) and Andrew Daly (Semi-Pro) . News broke recently about the dire reasons behind the film’s delayed release, but the film is still being prepped for a theatrical release this September.

According to the Wall St. Journal, the film’s production company Blowtorch Entertainment is nearly out of business after several hedge-fund investors went out of business. The company raised nearly $50 million to planned to distribute its content online as well as on television and in theatres. The firm has slashed its staff and board of directors, and is no longer looking for opportunities, according to FINalternatives.

“Our business plan was predicated on equity and debt,” Blowtorch Chief Executive Kelly Rodriques said. “Our debt effectively went away while we were working on our first couple projects and we just slowed everything down. We’ve kept it alive, but haven’t been doing any investing.”

Rodriques said 90% of the debt portion of the funding has been returned to the defunct hedge funds. The remainder will be paid back by monetizing the few projects the company has completed.

In addition to a Bijou Phillips film Spin set for DVD release, Tenure is set for a theatrical release in September. 

The past several years haven’t been good ones for Wilson, who has done good work in a series of films with limited theatrical releases or poor box office. The list includes:

• Mini’s First Time (2006, 7 theatres)
• Idiocracy (2006, 130 theatres)
• Vacancy (2007, $19m total gross)
• The Wendell Baker Story (2007, 17 theatres)
• You Kill Me (2007, 35 theatres)
• Blonde Ambition (2007, 8 theatres)
• Henry Poole is Here (2008, 527 theatres)
• Battle for Terra (2009, $1.6m gross, animated)

To learn more about Tenure, check this video with David Kochner and writer-director Mike Million

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 8:36 pm and is filed under David Koechner, Luke Wilson, News, Rumor, Tenure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.