Fifty years ago, every studio told Joe Camp — who died Friday after a long illness — he was barking up the wrong tree with Benji.
While working in advertising, the Texas-based Camp dreamed of telling a Lassie-like story from the dog’s point of view, and so he penned a script about a beloved stray pooch attempting to rescue two kidnapped children. Naming the film after his own dog, Camp secured independent financing and helmed the project himself.
“He screened it for every single studio, and each one passed,” recalls Camp’s son, filmmaker Brandon Camp, to The Hollywood Reporter. “They all said, ‘No one is interested in this movie.’ ”
Without a distributor, Joe Camp formed Mulberry Square Productions with Ed Vanston to release the film, which starred Peter Breck, Patsy Garrett and mixed-breed canine Higgins. They managed to book Benji at a single Dallas theater in 1974, and more locations followed as word-of-mouth grew.
While working in advertising, the Texas-based Camp dreamed of telling a Lassie-like story from the dog’s point of view, and so he penned a script about a beloved stray pooch attempting to rescue two kidnapped children. Naming the film after his own dog, Camp secured independent financing and helmed the project himself.
“He screened it for every single studio, and each one passed,” recalls Camp’s son, filmmaker Brandon Camp, to The Hollywood Reporter. “They all said, ‘No one is interested in this movie.’ ”
Without a distributor, Joe Camp formed Mulberry Square Productions with Ed Vanston to release the film, which starred Peter Breck, Patsy Garrett and mixed-breed canine Higgins. They managed to book Benji at a single Dallas theater in 1974, and more locations followed as word-of-mouth grew.
- 3/15/2024
- by Ryan Gajewski
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Joe Camp, the writer, director and producer who taught that old dog Hollywood new tricks about animal movies as the creative force behind the 1974 franchise-spawning Benji, has died. He was 84.
Camp died Friday morning at his home in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, following a long illness, his son, filmmaker Brandon Camp, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Camp also directed and co-wrote the comedies Hawmps! (1976), about the U.S. Cavalry replacing horses with camels in the 1850s, and The Double McGuffin (1979), which revolved around kids trying to thwart a terrorist (Ernest Borgnine) and featured lots of in-jokes about Hitchcock movies.
Other than serving as an extra on the Robert Mitchum-starring Home From the Hill (1960), Camp had no Hollywood experience when he raised about $500,000 to make Benji, a story about a stray mixed breed — not a fancy pure breed like Lassie! — who helps rescue two youngsters from kidnappers.
Crucial to the movie’s success,...
Camp died Friday morning at his home in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, following a long illness, his son, filmmaker Brandon Camp, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Camp also directed and co-wrote the comedies Hawmps! (1976), about the U.S. Cavalry replacing horses with camels in the 1850s, and The Double McGuffin (1979), which revolved around kids trying to thwart a terrorist (Ernest Borgnine) and featured lots of in-jokes about Hitchcock movies.
Other than serving as an extra on the Robert Mitchum-starring Home From the Hill (1960), Camp had no Hollywood experience when he raised about $500,000 to make Benji, a story about a stray mixed breed — not a fancy pure breed like Lassie! — who helps rescue two youngsters from kidnappers.
Crucial to the movie’s success,...
- 3/15/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This Lord of the Rings article contains spoilers for The Rings of Power.
While the first season of Amazon’s The Rings of Power bowed all the way back in 2022, we’ve yet to hear when season 2 will finally arrive on the streaming service. But during the wait, we have learned quite a few things about the upcoming season through set photos and updates from the show’s stars, including Morfydd Clark, who spoke to Den of Geek last year about what’s next for Galadriel. The latest update comes from actor Charlie Rich’s Instagram Stories, where he seems to confirm that Gavi Singh Chera (The Undeclared War) is set to play Annatar, one of the Dark Lord’s other forms in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, in season 2.
It’s important to note that Amazon hasn’t officially confirmed who Chera is playing, so take the following with a grain of salt.
While the first season of Amazon’s The Rings of Power bowed all the way back in 2022, we’ve yet to hear when season 2 will finally arrive on the streaming service. But during the wait, we have learned quite a few things about the upcoming season through set photos and updates from the show’s stars, including Morfydd Clark, who spoke to Den of Geek last year about what’s next for Galadriel. The latest update comes from actor Charlie Rich’s Instagram Stories, where he seems to confirm that Gavi Singh Chera (The Undeclared War) is set to play Annatar, one of the Dark Lord’s other forms in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, in season 2.
It’s important to note that Amazon hasn’t officially confirmed who Chera is playing, so take the following with a grain of salt.
- 1/19/2024
- by John Saavedra
- Den of Geek
A couple months ago, director Kevin Smith released his horror anthology KillRoy Was Here as an Nft. Now writer/director Jonas Odenheimer is bringing us a film that puts a horror twist on the concept of NFTs and crypto currency. The title of Odenheimer’s film is Nft, and a teaser trailer has just arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.
Nft centers on
a group of crypto-savvy millennials who are trying to escape their 9-5s by flipping NFTs as a side hustle. After buying into a supposedly ‘cursed’ Nft collection, they begin experiencing mysterious occurrences and will now have to fight for their lives.
The film stars David Wayman (The Ledge), Mariah Nonnemacher (Terminator: Dark Fate), Durassie Kiangangu (Imperial Blue), Amelie Edwards (Neighbourhood Ties), Nobuse Jnr (South Beast), Jasmine Clark (The Wasteland of Education), newcomer Charlie Rich, and Najarra Townsend of Contracted, Wolf Mother,...
Nft centers on
a group of crypto-savvy millennials who are trying to escape their 9-5s by flipping NFTs as a side hustle. After buying into a supposedly ‘cursed’ Nft collection, they begin experiencing mysterious occurrences and will now have to fight for their lives.
The film stars David Wayman (The Ledge), Mariah Nonnemacher (Terminator: Dark Fate), Durassie Kiangangu (Imperial Blue), Amelie Edwards (Neighbourhood Ties), Nobuse Jnr (South Beast), Jasmine Clark (The Wasteland of Education), newcomer Charlie Rich, and Najarra Townsend of Contracted, Wolf Mother,...
- 9/19/2022
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
Farewell, Olivia Newton-John, the eternally beloved pop queen who died Monday at age 73. No Seventies star had a weirder pop trajectory, going from the world’s favorite Australian country singer to a brazen Eighties black-leather New Wave diva in just a few years. But Olivia could do it all: weepy ballads like “I Honestly Love You,” country twang like “Let Me Be There,” Fifties pastiche in Grease. Disco show tunes with Gene Kelly and Elo in Xanadu. Heavy-breathing rock odes to sex like “Magic” and “Make a Move On Me.
- 8/9/2022
- by Rob Sheffield
- Rollingstone.com
Hargus “Pig” Robbins, a member of Nashville’s A-team of session players who added keyboards and piano to albums by Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Miranda Lambert, Ween, and many more, died Sunday. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, who inducted Robbins into the Hall in 2012, confirmed his death. He was 84.
Robbins’ playing was all about the feel. Listen to the bluesy piano he dropped into Dylan’s “Pledging My Time” in 1966, the defining but never heavy-handed intro he played on Crystal Gayle’s 1977 “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,...
Robbins’ playing was all about the feel. Listen to the bluesy piano he dropped into Dylan’s “Pledging My Time” in 1966, the defining but never heavy-handed intro he played on Crystal Gayle’s 1977 “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,...
- 1/30/2022
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
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