- In the summer of 2020,
I exploited a loophole to get my zero-budget horror film
to become the number one movie in the U.S. box office.
This is that story.
If you're thinking he kind of looks familiar.
You're right.
My name is Christian Nilsson and I used to work at Buzzfeed.
When I left Buzzfeed in 2019,
I decided to focus on a feature film I'd written
and planned on directing this past September.
But then COVID happened.
Movie theaters across the country were shuttered,
our investors pulled out,
and seemingly overnight, a project I'd worked on
for about five years just fell apart.
I was devastated.
Enter this fool.
You remember him?
Eric Tabach was the creator
of some really high brow Buzzfeed content.
Like me, Eric left Buzzfeed a few months prior
to the pandemic.
He wanted to go start in his own YouTube series,
but also like me, the investors pulled out
as soon as COVID hit.
I really felt for him.
Here we are following our passions
and for reasons completely out of our control,
our dream opportunities seem to vanish.
On Thursday, May 7th, Eric gave me a call out of the blue.
He pointed out movies were only making 10 to $20,000 a day
at drive-ins and asked with movie theaters closed
and nothing new being released,
did I think we could make one of his YouTube videos
go to number one in the box office.
Suddenly, I had an idea.
I told him about four-walling,
a distribution method where a filmmaker rents out a theater
for a flat fee and then keeps all the ticket sales.
I said that if we were able to find a closed theater,
rent their space for near nothing,
we could literally purchase every ticket ourselves
and the money would essentially flow
right back into our own pockets.
Theoretically, we wouldn't have to spend a dollar.
He was in.
Now, we could have filmed anything
and it could have become the number one movie in America.
But I thought why not make it something good?
Maybe this could lead to something else in the future.
That Saturday, in about 12 hours,
I knocked out the script for "Unsubscribe,"
a short horror film about five YouTubers
who join a Zoom call for their friend's birthday
only to learn they're being hunted by an internet troll.
Despite writing it in only one sitting,
I was told it was pretty scary.
The next day, Eric called a group of his friends,
including former Buzzfeeders Michelle Khare,
Zach Kornfeld from The Try Guys,
and somehow Charlie Tahan,
who you might recognize from "Ozark" and "I Am Legend."
They were all down.
And why not?
They're all stuck at home bored
and why pass up the opportunity
to be in the number one movie in America.
On Monday May 11th, just a few days after Eric first called,
we started shooting.
We shot pretty much all of "Unsubscribed" virtually
over Zoom in just four days.
If you can give me a full-on scream of-
- Like full-on scream.
- Yeah.
- Snake. (screams)
- Total budget: $0.
I started editing and Eric worked to find us a theater.
And that's when we hit our first major problem.
Cinemas were closed.
Every cinema Eric called went straight to voicemail
and the few drive-ins that were open
didn't care to screen our short film.
So I called the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center,
a small venue near my hometown that I used to work at
when I was in high school.
Despite being closed,
they agreed to open their doors for one day only.
The rental fee?
Literally $1 because they were closed.
So on Wednesday, June 10th, in front of a sold out audience
consisting solely of Eric and I, we premiered "Unsubscribe."
We'd screen the film five times,
buying out every seat for each showing,
knowing the money would funnel right back to us.
We spent $25,488
and raked in $25,488,
minus tax.
I reported the box office numbers that night
to Box Office Mojo and The Numbers.
And we waited.
Eric and I nearly had a panic attack.
What if another movie made more than us?
What if they didn't accept our submission?
What if we just wasted all of our time?
The following day, we went online
and saw "Unsubscribe" was the number one movie in America.
And overnight, our lives didn't change,
at least not at first.
It wasn't until about a week later when a local news site
picked up a Facebook post that I'd written
that people started to notice in a big way.
We woke up to find out we were trending on Twitter.
We were in the Washington Post, New York Magazine,
NBC, the BBC, NPR, the Irish Times,
Australian Radio, the AV Club.
Most people thought the stunt was brilliant,
but we did have our critics.
There were some people on Film Twitter that said
that we ruined the sanctity of the box office,
as if that's really a thing.
But you know what?
It worked.
Not only did Eric and I etch our names
in the annals of box office history,
but we also got the film industry's attention.
A group of producers watched our film on Vimeo on Demand
and approached us to make a feature film.
And we did.
Eric and I just wrapped production
on a psychological thriller called "Dash Cam,"
which is gonna be released next year.
And perhaps even crazier,
the other month Eric and I screened "Unsubscribe"
for seven consecutive days in Chicago's Music Box Theater,
qualifying us for the Oscars.
I mean hey, if barely any short films screen in the U.S.
in 2020, our chances of getting an Oscar nomination
only increase, right?
So maybe what started as two guys
losing their dream opportunities
might just turn into an Oscar.
Now, that'd be a story.
(dramatic instrumental music)