JoBlo Originals discusses Napoleon Dynamite

[TMC]

LANGAUGE WARNING

Napoleon Dynamite was a smash hit in the summer of 2004. Made on a $400,000 budget in Idaho by a friendly group of young Mormons, including directed Jared Hess and star Jon Heder, the movie was a sensation at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. It was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight, who gave the film a staggered release that allowed it to build solid word-of-mouth. By the end of that summer, if you attended a screening at your local arthouse, you likely saw at least a few people wearing “Vote for Pedro” t-shirts. Indeed, it grossed a stunning $44 million domestically, and that’s not even counting how well the merchandise from the film fared. By the time its DVD revenue was counted up, the movie had made tens of millions in profit.

So how did this scrappy indie become such a sensation? If this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie (written by Jake Dee, edited by Cesar Gomez and narrated by Mathew Plale), we look at how Hess and his pals made a smart, clean, hip indie comedy and stumbled upon a goldmine.

And, in case you’re wondering what happened to the Napoleon Dynamite gang, just because they may not be household names anymore doesn’t mean they haven’t gone on to great careers. After making the cult classic Nacho Libre and some lesser-seen films, director Jared Hess pivoted to non-fiction, directing two big true-crime hits for Netflix. One was Murder Among the Mormons, while the other, Muscles & Mayhem: An Unauthorized Story of American Gladiators, is one of the streamer's biggest non-fiction releases this summer.