February 2016. Los Angeles. I鈥檓 at my desk. My phone rings. A good friend says to me 鈥榙o you know that is number 3 on iTunes?鈥�. I laugh, and say 鈥榥o, no, that鈥檚 probably just because you downloaded it, it鈥檚 an algorithm thing鈥�. She laughs now. 鈥楾ess, it doesn鈥檛 work like that. Look at iTunes. It鈥檚 The Big Short, Star Wars, and then Man Up鈥�.
In rom com storytelling terms, this is the moment where your main character (me) has an epiphany. They rise up out of their seat, as they flashback to something someone once said to them. In my case, Simon Pegg, on the set of Man Up. 鈥榊ou know, this film is going to have a very long life, Tess鈥�. It was 11.30pm on February 2014, on a rainy street in Ealing, West London. We鈥檇 just shot some of the final scenes, where Simon鈥檚 character, Jack, runs through the streets with a bunch of drunk teenagers behind him. I had begun my career writing for the small screen, and now, here I was, standing on the set of a full blown movie that people were going to go and see on the big screen, getting prescient advice from one of my favourite actors. Life can be pretty surreal at times.
So let me just admit my inner prejudice now, and get it all out on the table. As much as I adored TV, film has always been my first love, and I held it in a higher regard. Sure, the teenage me was a regular guest star at the local video store, renting three movies for a fiver, but seeing a film in the cinema was still the ultimate goal. I鈥檓 the kind of person who gets in her seat for the film before the trailers have begun, because what kind of person wanders in during them? A total lunatic. I remember my first 15 鈥� Pretty Woman, Torbay Odeon, Devon 鈥� like it was yesterday. I once went to see Robin Hood Prince of Thieves at Putney Odeon, and loved it so much, I went straight back in for the next screening. I have been known to shout at an ex-boyfriend 鈥榙evelop some critical faculties!鈥� when he professed he 鈥榪uite enjoyed Sin City鈥� outside the Phoenix Cinema in Oxford (apologies to any bystanders).
Anyway, all of this is a roundabout way of confirming my very passionate love for the movies, and the houses that home them. I went into the making, editing, grading, mixing and scoring of Man Up with an almost obsessive compulsion to get people to see it in the cinema. The night of release, I took a glorious group of pals to see it at Wandsworth Cineworld, and I sat amongst total strangers, watching their reactions - it wasn鈥檛 creepy, honestly - delighted at what I saw.
And then that was done. Our film had been released in the cinema, where all my formative hopes and dreams had been formed, and I naively thought that was the end of our journey鈥� when in fact, it was just the beginning. Because while we鈥檇 been busy making a movie, the world, and the way it consumed its media, had dramatically altered. In the five year window we took to get Man Up from script to screen, the small screen had become king.
Netflix, Amazon and everyone else coming up on their coattails had become content making machines, existing alongside cinema releases, sometimes simultaneously, changing the way we make films, distribute films, release films, watch and re-watch films. Netflix just announced a 6 billion purchasing plan (yup, 6 BILLION) and recently shelled out $105 million for the global rights to Scorsese鈥檚 The Irishman. And just won their first Oscar for the documentary The White Helmets - with Amazon mirroring this with their Oscar win for Manchester By The Sea. For our US release, Man Up came out in the cinemas, and then just a week later, it launched on iTunes, a common template for films these days.
And it鈥檚 not just movies that we鈥檙e watching at home, of course - we鈥檙e binging watching all the shows the small screen can possibly throw at us, with screenwriters such as David Fincher (House of Cards) and Aline Brosh McKenna (My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) finding a very happy home producing television shows.
How did this all happen, so suddenly and so successfully? Do people just like to stay in more these days, or did we just give them so many more reasons to stay in? How can your local multiplex hope to compete with all the options that our TV remotes now brings us? It really is a brave new world out there for storytellers, and I鈥檝e come to realise that although I鈥檒l always be the girl in the cinema shushing a stranger if they munch too loudly on their popcorn, I鈥檒l also be the girl who appreciates and understands that sometimes you just want to be at home in your pants on the sofa, scrolling through the rom com section on a Friday night.
But it is complex for me. I don鈥檛 want people to stop going to the cinema (but they should stop ordering nachos, who decided nachos were a thing to eat in the cinema?) but at the same time, I鈥檓 excited by the opportunities the small screen now gives me as a writer. Some of those film ideas I鈥檝e had for years, what if they鈥檇 make a great mini series instead? Or, more interestingly, what if my next film doesn鈥檛 get a cinema release at all鈥� but more people see it as a result of that? Man Up flourished on people鈥檚 televisions and laptops, queued up on their streaming sites, their interest piqued by us on their 鈥榬ecommended鈥� section, and that long life that Simon Pegg predicated continues.
And now we have our 91热爆2 premiere, and we鈥檒l hopefully find a whole new audience in the process. The ones who switch on the telly, and Man Up has just started. They turn to each other - or the cat 鈥� and say, shall we give it a go? They nod, sure. And that鈥檚 how they find the film. Because as long as we all find our favourite films in the end, that鈥檚 the important thing.
Man Up is on tonight at 9pm and available to watch on