Louis C.K. plans to hit the film fest circuit with "Hilarious"

[isoS]

While waiting to hear back from F/X about the pilot he recently shot, Louis C.K. has been hatching a plan to take his latest stand-up special "Hilarious" into a new arena: the movie theater. In a recent email, Louis writes:

The new special, "Hilarious" I shot in Milwaukee back in March, or was it April? In any case, I shot it on RED cameras with 35mm movie lenses and directed myself, with the intent to release it as a theatrical film. It's about 85 minutes long. The plan is to begin at film festivals. It might start at Sundance which isn't till January. If we don't get theatrical distribution, then it will just go on Comedy Central, who advanced the TV licence fee to us so we could shoot it. In any case I don't think anyone will see Hilarious until 2010.

As for his most recent material:

I am now performing about 45 or 50 minutes of material that is new since I shot Hilarious. I am touring exclusively in Canada and Europe this fall, which is allowing me to develop this material without burning out all these cities in the US which I've been playing in a cycle for the last 3 years. If this FX series gets picked up, all of that material will be featured on it. If they pass, I'll shoot another special early next year. In 2010 I'll be stepping up to some larger rooms, including Carnegie Hall, which I'm playing some time in March. If I shoot a special, I'd probably do it there or at the Orpheum in Boston.

There you have it. Louis expects to hear about his F/X pilot in "about two weeks" -- we'll follow up on that here as soon as we hear anything.

[Jouster]

Cool news. Does anyone remember the last stand-up special that had a theatrical release? The Original Kings of Comedy, maybe?

[Aaron1933]

Runteldat?

[Cameron]

This is pretty awesome news, even though having to wait perhaps another year to see this is quite depressing.

Also a bummer he won't be performing in the US this year. I understand his reasoning for only performing in Canada and Europe, but couldn't he accomplish the same thing by performing in smaller market US cities that he hasn't been to in the last three years (like maybe Oklahoma City)?

[dogsdonttelljokes]

I've been hoping someone would bring stand-up specials back into theaters; glad to hear that Louis might be the one.

[Mo!]

Cool news. Does anyone remember the last stand-up special that had a theatrical release? The Original Kings of Comedy, maybe?

Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Magic

[Jouster]

Of course. I even saw that in the theater (I'm an idiot).

[Itslikeimsayin]

This sounds very cool.

Hey Louis: What's the primary appeal of releasing "Hilarious" theatrically to you?