On Academy Awards night each year, Mike Critelli generally turns a blind eye to the proceedings, preferring to putter about on other projects on a Sunday evening.
As to any thought of pacing the red carpet himself a year from now? That would hit him from the blind side, the CEO-turned-executive producer says.
As Hollywood hits its post-Oscar lull until early May when the first summer blockbuster arrives in the form of “The Avengers,” Critelli continues his scavenger hunt for a distribution deal for his own “From the Rough.”
It marks the film production debut for the former CEO of Pitney Bowes Inc., who since leaving the Stamford-based giant has kept in the public view via his “Open Mike” blog on societal and business issues, as well as pushing for personal health records through a Massachusetts startup.
Critelli said he stumbled across the movie”™s story by happenstance, after he heard the account of a Brit who won a scholarship onto the men”™s golf team at a historically black college ”“ with the woman coach launching a controversial global search to fill out her first lineup card leading a golf team, having previously coached swimming.
Critelli did not think twice about treading into the quicksand that is the film industry to tell that story, despite never having worked on such a project. It helped that his son, a graduate of the University of Southern California who took some film classes, was on hand as a trusted adviser. The younger Michael Critelli is credited for the screenplay, along with the movie”™s director Pierre Bagley.
“It just seemed like a great movie plot,” Critelli said. “It just struck me that movie entertainment is very powerful in getting stories across to people.”
In bumping against the topics of race, economic status and unlikely heroes through the lens of a game, the movie”™s subject matter is reminiscent of “The Blind Side,” which was nominated for an Academy Award and which won Sandra Bullock the Oscar for best actress.
If not an actor of the stature of Bullock, Critelli and Bagley recruited a solid ensemble cast including Tom Felton, fresh off his portrayal of the nemesis in the “Harry Potter” series; and Oscar-nominees Michael Clarke Duncan and Taraji P. Henson, the latter playing coach Catana Starks who guided Tennessee State University to a PGA National Collegiate Minority Championship.
For Critelli, “From the Rough” has played out like a tough 18-hole course with plenty of traps and hazards, but he and Bagley have kept chipping away and are well into the back nine.
You might see it in a theater near you in the latter half of 2012. And you might see Critelli tread the red carpet yet, if not at the Kodak Theatre perhaps at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah or even the ESPY Awards, with the show”™s Bristol-based host ESPN having shown a penchant for inspirational stories in giving its best-movie award to films like “The Rookie,” “Miracle,” “The Fighter” (among Critelli”™s recent favorites) and of course “The Blind Side” in 2008. To date, no golf film has potted the ESPY for best sports movie, despite a few being nominated.
As the rookie producer, Critelli fights on to get his movie into distribution, any major award would represent a small miracle he is not counting on ”“ and which he says never drove him into the business to begin with.
He says he is open to another movie project ”“ if the right story tees itself up.
“Obviously its going to depend on how well we do. But given what we”™ve accomplished and what it”™s been like working with my son, sure.”
