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WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- White Plains native Matt Markey kicked off his New Year celebrating the sale of his first movie,"Ricky," on his mom's birthday.
"On Dec. 29, which happens to be my mothers birthday, it all became official, which was great. It was a great way to end the year and a great way to start the year," said Markey, who returned from Los Angeles to host a screening of his movie in White Plains this summer. "I went out and toasted it with a couple of friends, but mainly called my folks because they've been through the struggle the whole time. It was a relief to finally cross the finish line."
'Ricky,' which chronicles a young man's uphill battle with love "Rocky"-style, began to catch attention after winning the best romantic comedy at the Beverly Hills Film Festival and the New York International Film Festival. ITN Distribution caught the winning film in New York and began asking Markey's agent about buying it and selling it on dvd and Blue-ray.
"The first thing that the distribution company is doing is theyre changing the art work on the poster and dvd jacket. Technically they own the movie now because I signed over the rights to them for the next five years," said Markey. "Im optimistic because its going to be a lot of promos going by and not me scraping for the money to do them."
"Ricky" will be released this June on Netflix, Video on Demand, Redbox, cable, dvd, and Blockbusters, Wal-Marts, Kmarts, and Targets in American and Canada. International releases will follow.
"Hopefully 'Ricky' will be all up in your face and youll have no choice but to buy it," said Markey. "You always got to remain optimistic."
Signing the contract put Markey in a good enough mood to sit down and write a comedy.
"When the ball started rolling, I just kind of got the itch to write again," said Markey. "I was going to do a story, a drama about two kids wrongly accused of a crime, but now Im in such a good mood, I want to do a comedy again."
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