Just A Small Town Guy
Daniels has appeared in 30 feature films including Terms of Endearment, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Speed, 101 Dalmatians, Pleasantville, Arachnaphobia, and the recent television mini-series, The Crossing, where he played George Washington leading his men across the Delaware. Pretty impressive résumé for a guy from the tiny Midwest farming community of Chelsea, Mich.
Like a lot of kids from small towns, Daniels took off for the big city when he decided he wanted to be an actor. But, after ten years of film and stage acting in New York and L.A., in 1988 Jeff brought his family back home to Chelsea, whose only other claim to fame is being the home of Jiffy Mix.
When Jeff moved back to the Midwest, people said he'd lose his career. Hasn't happened. People said that if he founded a theater company in Chelsea, an hour's drive away from Detroit, it would flop. Daniels' Purple Rose Theater is flourishing.
Daniels has guts. After he founded the Purple Rose Theater Company, he began writing plays, and performing them with local talent. They filled the house, night after night. Another success!
Taking the Independent Route
Jeff's next step was forming a production company, Purple Rose Films. For his first film, he chose one of his stage plays, “Escanaba in da Moonlight,” a comedy set in an upper peninsula Michigan deer camp. He transformed it into a feature film — which he has written, produced, directed, and starred in.
Speaking with Jeff recently, he told me that no one in Hollywood wanted to fund a movie set in a Michigan deer camp, so he went out and raised $1.5 million from people across the state. Many of the investors are people who have seen “Escanaba in da Moonlight” performed as a play, first at Jeff's Purple Rose Theater, or at the Gem Theater in Detroit, where it continues to play to enthusiastic sell-out crowds; the longest-running play in Detroit history according to the Detroit Free Press.
“It's basically the story of five people in a deer camp,” Daniels explained. “The lead character is Reuben Soady (played by Jeff), who is 43 and has never shot a buck, so he's a 'buckless yooper.' (“Yooper” stands for resident of the Upper Peninsula.) If Reuben doesn't get one this year, he will be the oldest person in the Soady family to not have bagged a buck, except for an uncle who is missing a few screws. His father, Albert, (Harve Presnell) and the others all want to help Reuben break his jinx, which makes for some tense, funny moments.
Jeff said, “I've described it as Jeremiah Johnson meets Dumb and Dumber, but Escanaba in da Moonlight is basically a hero's journey, where Reuben is guided by his Indian wife, “Hawk Moon,” (Kimberly Norris Guerro), who is a better shot and very woods-wise. It's not just about deer hunting, it's a spiritual quest with hunting as a metaphor.”
“Comedy gives us license to be outrageous,” Daniels told me with a chuckle. Escanaba in da Moonlight, has its outrageous moments — a father-son counseling session in an outhouse, visitations from aliens, and a wild tavern scene. Jeff, however, assures me that, ultimately, this is a “heart” picture that seeks to present a little-seen facet of modern American life. That is certainly true, for the Michigan State Film Office reports that the only other film shot in Michigan's Upper Peninsula was Anatomy of A Murder in 1959, and when was the last time you saw a feature film set in deer camp?
True to His Roots
Most of the film was shot last March in Escanaba, using a lot of locals. The music was scored by Alto Reed, sax player from Bob Seeger's Silver Bullet Band. Ted Nugent supplied props for the hunting camp.
Staying true to his roots, Jeff premiered Escanaba in da Moonlight before a sell-out crowd on October 22 at Detroit's Fox Theatre. Daniels then took the film to Escanaba on October 29, for two more sell-out showings at the biggest space in the area-the 760 seat Chip-In Resort and Casino, owned by the Potawotami Indian tribe. The reviews were great.
Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Well, now comes the part where we learn one reason as to why more hunting movies are not made. In order to get a movie out into the theaters, you need a distributor. Copies were sent out to distributors far and wide, but none would take it. On top of that, film festivals, like the Toronto Film Festival, where Jeff's other pictures, such as Dumb and Dumber, have premiered, turned him down. “They seem to be looking for something dark and edgy,” Jeff told me.
So, Daniels became his own distributor. The general release started out in January in selected theaters in Michigan. It grossed $250,000 the first weekend, more than any big-budget studio release playing in the same area. News spread, and so did bookings, stretching out into other nearby Midwest states. At the eight-week mark, Escanaba In Da Moonlight had grossed over $1.8 million. It's per-screen average is higher than any top-grossing film in the U.S. Is this another Blair Witch Project success story? Stay tuned.
Daniels admits that people living in big cities who have never seen a deer, let alone hunted one, may not get Escanaba In da Moonlight. But apparently there are a lot of folks who want to see a good, funny movie about deer hunting.
(This article can also be found on National Review Online.)
