At least on one level, Matt Liston’s epic quest is close to fruition. Since 2002, Liston has been documenting his “Just Believe Campaign,” a quixotic endeavor to land the Cubs a World Series victory through sheer positive thinking and a series of highly publicized stunts.
Now, two years later, the Cubs are struggling for the wild card spot, but Liston is weeks away from completing his comedic feature doc about the experience, “Wait til This Year.”
“If the Cubs make the post season, we’re talking to a larger chain about getting the film into theaters,” Liston said. “If they don’t get into the playoffs, we’ll go the festival route and try to get distribution that way.”
Liston milked connections from his TV career to secure interviews with a string of celebrities including Sammy Sosa, Larry King, Bernie Mac, Gary Sinise and many others. “Wait til This Year” also records Liston’s antics, commissioning a statue of Dusty Baker, ordering a World Series ring, mapping out a prospective victory celebration, and so on.
“We feel it will transcend Chicago and the sports world with the story of one man’s effort to end 96 years of losing ? I’ve given up everything to make it happen,” Liston said.
Fox Sports Net commissioned Liston and producing partner Chris Karnak to make a pilot for a series based on the film last year, “but we disagreed on the way the show should look and it fell through,” Liston said.
Liston did land a job as a producer on Fox Sports Net’s “Sports List” for Asylum, in an arrangement that allowed him to continue working on the doc, but he left that job in recent weeks to wrap post.
One animated sequence and a couple more interviews, and “Wait til Next Year” will be complete, just in time for the playoffs. Bill McCullough’s Wonderland Productions in New York is handling post, through an arrangement made by co-executive producer Gary Cohen.
Liston and Karnak self-financed the $100,000 budget “on credit cards” through their October Entertainment. Liston anticipated another $100,000 in licensing fees, which would ideally be covered by the film’s distributor, but “if we want to put it out before distribution we’ll take care of it through a private investor,” Liston said.
A Chicago Heights native, Liston has worked on sitcoms including “Seinfeld,” “Mad About You,” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and on doc projects for Discovery and The History Channel. “I wanted to blend the style and comedic approach of ?Curb Your Enthusiasm’ with more of the reality-based work,” Liston said. “I don’t know what you call the combination, but I know it’s going to be entertaining.”
To learn more or view the trailer by Gabrielle Fasulo see www.cubsmovie.com.
– by Ed M. Koziarski, edk@homesickblues.com
