The Asylum

This is a documentary within a documentary called Mockbuster.

So I don't know if you know the term Mockbuster, but that's kind of the derogatory yet embraced now term for the kind of films that studio The Asylum makes.

If you haven't heard of them, I know you've heard of their work.

that's the ones where they take the title and make a crappy version of it

Let's do Sharknado.

Yep.

The Asylum.

Mega shark versus giant octopus.

There is a case called Warner Bros.

Entertainment versus The Global Asylum.

The plaintiffs in this case are Warner Bros.

Entertainment, New Line Cinema, and MGM, who produced and distributed films that are based on, um, J.R.R. Tolkien's works, specifically The Hobbit, um, as well as the Saul Zaentz Company, who owns multiple trademarks that include the word hobbit.

On this week's show, I have David Amlett.

David is the co-founder of The Asylum, one of the most prolific independent film studios around.

They have won dozens of awards and created such movies as Sharknado, Sharknado 2, Sharknado 3, and the upcoming Sharknado 4, The Fourth Awakens.

We're going to talk all about how The Asylum comes up with their ideas and how they market it and how they make money.

So here we go with David Amlett.

Hey, David, thank you very much

Hey, thanks for having me.

My pleasure, my friend.

eyewash station or whatever

yeah yeah so he was doing that and he was like man like i'm i'm paying the bills and uh this is just not what i want to do and he was like you know what like my heart is in making movies and he he um just out of nowhere for no reason he messages the asylum uh and the asylum is i don't know they make you know they make all this that i used to watch literally every friday okay on sci-fi channel like Sharknado.

Oh,

okay.

Would y'all let me make a movie? And they responded, yes.

And so they give him the go-ahead to direct their next movie, which is a dinosaur bullshit thing.

called uh the the end of the world or some shit like that and like so they fly him out to los angeles and he gets a tour of the asylum and then they send him back to australia and they're like all right they're like well you have six weeks to make a movie and uh he's like i'm sorry it

sounded like you said six weeks

And it was the apex predator for about 10 minutes.

You know, you know, the asylum, they make B movies that are kind of like making fun of real.

Yes.

Yes.

I

don't care.

Listen, The Asylum, if you guys are watching, I will direct a film for you.

Just hit me up.

Yeah.

It also has two unofficial remakes, one from 1967 called She Freak and one from 2007 from The Asylum called Freak Show.

Oh, funny.

I've not heard great things about either of those.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and the biggest criminal in this situation is a film studio called The Asylum.

Yeah.

Um, I wanna tell you a sidebar, which is, uh, at one point back in the days of Twitter, when we had Twitter, the head of The Asylum followed me on Twitter.

Oh, wow.

I have very strong opinions about The Asylum.

Mm-hmm.

And so I instantly DMed him saying, "Hey, guy.