Sherlock Holmes 2 - The People's Film
For the past year or so, Aleksandr Bubnov (bubnoff) has been working hard on the sequel to his very funny 2005 film "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson" (I translated it a few years ago: part 1, part 2.) . The 2005 film is the most-viewed film on my Youtube channel, out of over 50 videos. If anyone's interested, here's the top 10:
It's been viewed over 100,000 times, with most views coming from the United States, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada (viewing demographics: 59% male. Ages 13-17: 16%, 18-24: 13%, 25-34: 17%, 35-44: 23%, 45-54: 20%, 55-64: 10%, 65+: 1%):
The reason I mention all this is that I would like him to succeed in making another film, so I'm pointing out that the original film is very popular, not just among Russian-speaking audiences but apparently among English- and German-speakers too.
Bubnov has been having trouble getting his new film funded. After initially being deceived by his producer (who failed to even submit the film for funding while telling him that he was doing that), and fed up with the bureaucracy of animation funding in Russia, last year Bubnov decided to do something drastic, and ask the public for help. He asked for $70,000 (which is less than usual for a film of this size), and attempted to get 700 people to invest $100 each. 359 people have agreed so far, and 61 of them have actually sent him money. Unfortunately, the economic crisis hit last year, and it hit Russia particularly hard, so even despite the enthusiastic reception that the new film has received, many people have been reluctant to commit to the project.
As I have shown above, however, there is no reason that the audience or the funding of the film should be limited to Russians. That is what has happened so far - only the Russian market has been tapped commercially. Yet despite the different language and necessity to read subtitles, the original film seems to be very popular with other audiences.
On the off-chance that anyone reading this would like to help produce it, Bubnov's email is bubnov@aha.ru. For the rest of us, you can follow the progress of the new film on a Livejournal community blog and on its official website (which contains the first part of the script and some sketches):
http://community.livejournal.com/holmes_2/
http://www.narodnoe-kino.info/
UPDATE 13-08-09: here's an image from the new film:
