Not A Dream! Not An Imaginary Story! Cheapjack Partners Announce Film Adaption Of Graphic Novel

March 19, 2011 - PRLog -- Cheapjack Partners, LLC; a company formed last year by renegade entertainment execs Gabriel Benson and Shaun McLaughlin announced their first feature film today. “At This Stage” will be an adaptation of “Cheapjack Shakespeare” the webcomic they’ve been running as a daily feature on their website www.cheapjackshakespeare.com.

“We’re really excited about this. It’s the culmination of a lot of work and dragging a lot of anvils up a lot of hills,” McLaughlin, who wrote the script and will direct the film, said. “And I can’t talk anymore because I just realized how much work I have to do.”

“We’ve put in a lot of working developing the Cheapjack brand from the web comic to the play that ran in Buffalo last year.  Seeing the film completed will be a really satisfying experience,” said Benson.  
“Cheapjack Shakespeare” was previously adapted to the stage and premiered last fall to sold out houses and tells the story of a summer Shakespeare festival beset by hecklers, streakers, infidelity and lightning strikes. It’s a comedy that has as much in common with “Old School” or “Stepbrothers” than it does “As You Like It”.

“Shakespeare scares people,” McLaughlin, who will direct from his script,  said. “They think it’s going to be ‘thee, thou’ and don’t get that we’re doing a comedy that starts with actors jumping off stage to fight hecklers. And getting drunk. And getting naked with inappropriate people.”

The partners plan a large web presence between now and shooting.
The film will be shot on location in Western New York this summer. Casting will be announced soon. They plan to have a rough cut ready by September for festival submissions.

No casting has been announced, but current plans call for a cadre of experienced, but unknowns taking the roles of the college student/actors and they’re hoping to land 1-2 “name” actors for key roles.  Filming locations will be announced soon.

Benson and McLaughlin founded Cheapjack Partners to create and acquire properties that can be exploited transmedia, to build franchises and to explore new business models in film and animation. They met while producing the Beckett Entertainment animated film “Gene-Fusion” which will be released by MTI in May. Other projects include the webcomedy “The Bullpen.”

For more information or for review copies of the graphic novel, please contact: shaun@cheapjackshakespeare.com

Shaun McLaughlin began his career writing “Aquaman” (the non-maimed version) for DC Comics. He went on to write for DC, Malibu, Disney and Dark Horse. In 1994 he moved to Warner Bros. Animation where he produced over 400 episodes of television (5 Emmy Award Winners) including “Batman Beyond”, “Static Shock”, and the various incarnations of “Justice League”. Besides “Cheapjack Shakespeare”, McLaughlin is writing an animated feature for Omens Studios and preparing a live-action feature with Benson.

Gabriel Benson worked on numerous feature films that people might have seen during his years in Hollywood, including a lengthy stint developing Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines.  Benson is also the writer of the graphic novels “The Ballad Of Sleeping Beauty,” “Fade From Grace” and the animated feature “Gene-Fusion” which will be released in 2010.  And finally, Gabriel is still working on the screenplay adaptation of “Fade From Grace” which he and McLaughlin are going to turn into a live-action Oscar winner soon.