‘Chapo Trap House’ Has a Hit Podcast. Now, They Have a Movie — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- ColdFeet Productions, founded by Amber A'Lee Frost and Chris Wade, is releasing 'Chunks' — a six-segment surreal anthology film — on Patreon July 19 at 8 p.m. ET, using the platform's new digital-ticket feature for premiere access.
- Amber A'Lee Frost conceived 'Chunks' shortly after relocating to Los Angeles in 2020, pitching it to co-hosts Will Menaker, Felix Biederman, and Matt Christman via a PowerPoint presentation as a way to expand beyond the audio-only podcast format.
- ColdFeet Productions has three other projects in motion: co-producing 'Eephus' (which premiered at Cannes last year), producing 'Raccoon' starring Tim Heidecker for the fall festival circuit, and developing an animated 'Justice Warriors' series with Sony based on Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson's comic.
- Frost and Wade structured each 'Chunks' segment so creators retain ownership of their ideas with broadcast rights held by ColdFeet — a model Frost describes as 'a micro Patreon — except we give people startup money,' positioning shorts as potential pilots for longer projects.
- Contributors to 'Chunks' include 'dirtbag left' podcaster Nick Mullen, whose animated segment riffs on healthcare industry critiques via a toilet paper commercial, and comedian Sandy Honig, whose afterlife sketch flips Sartre 'on its head'.
- Hollywood development friction delayed 'Chunks' by roughly six years, with Frost recounting that executives repeatedly told them: 'That's amazing. We love it. Write it and make it, and then we'll take 10 percent.'
Why it matters: Chunks signals a viable distribution path for left-leaning creators bypassed by traditional Hollywood: Patreon's new ticketed digital events let ColdFeet retain creator IP rights and keep broadcast ownership, a structural departure from the 'write it and we'll take 10 percent' model Frost says gatekept them for six years. With three additional ColdFeet projects moving through festivals and Sony, the podcast's creators are positioning themselves as an alternative production pipeline rather than a one-off film experiment.
Ask SkimNews
