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Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim in TIM & ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE, a Magnet Release. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie (2012)

Opened: 03/02/2012 Limited

Trailer: Click for trailers

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Genre: Comedy

Rated: R for strong crude and sexual content throughout, brief graphic nudity, pervasive language, comic violence and drug use.

Synopsis

An all new feature film from the twisted minds of cult comedy heroes Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim ("Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job")! Tim and Eric are given a billion dollars to make a movie, but squander every dime... and the sinister Schlaaangcorporation is pissed. Their lives at stake, the guys skip town in search of a way to pay the money back. When they happen upon a chance to rehabilitate a bankrupt mall full of vagrants, bizarre stores and a man-eating wolf that stalks the food court, they see dollar signs--a billion of them. Featuring cameos from Awesome Show regulars and some of the biggest names in comedy today!

From Tim and Eric, Funny or Die and Magnet Releasing comes TIM AND ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE. Starring, written, produced and directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Also produced by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Todd Wagner, Chris Henchy, Dave Kneebone, Kevin J. Messick, Ben Cosgrove and Jon Mugar.Executive producers Mark Cuban and Shay Weiner.Also starring Jeff Goldblum, Robert Loggia, TwinkCaplan, Ray Wise, William Atherton, Michael Gross, and secret, special guests. Director of Photography is Rachel Morrison. Production Designer is Rosie Sanders, Art Direction by Melanie Mandl. Edited by Daniel Haworth.Original Music by Davin Wood.

About the Film

The TIM AND ERIC story begins in 1994, in the film program at Temple University in where the two first met.

"We met in Filmmaking 101 class and quickly realized we had the same kind of sensibility and thought the same things were funny," recalls ERIC WAREHEIM. "Particularly bad local television productions," adds TIM HEIDECKER. The duo quickly latched onto poorly made cable access shows and local spots, something which would become a hallmark of their comedy soon thereafter. "The equipment available to us in film school was. . . shitty," Tim says. "So we were kind of forced to use it, but we ended up having fun making bad things with it. On purpose."

While they didn't originally consider comedy to be a way to make a living, the two started doing projects together for class, creating a variety of ridiculous short films and weird video art. "We started showing our stuff to people, and they started taking it more seriously," says Tim. "So we thought, 'Well, maybe we could actually really do this.'"

A collection of their short films was sent out as holiday videos to friends, as well as entered into film festivals, which generated enough response to inspire the pair to continue with their silliness. One of those shorts, "Tom Goes to the Mayor," made it to the attention of Mike Lazzo, senior executive vice president of The Cartoon Network's Adult Swim late night programming. "The original was very, very crude," Tim recalls. "It doesn't quite feel like what the show became, so it took a lot of foresight on Mike's part to get it into production."

The show, featuring a unique style of limited animation, ran for nearly two years on the network. It was then followed by their hugely popular "Tim and Eric Awesome Show -- Great Job!" which premiered on Adult Swim in February 2007 and ran for over three years, giving the team an open platform to develop their brand of cheesy over-the-top satire and raunchy, campy humor that kept audiences laughing into the night. "It was the dream show we always wanted to do -- a sketch comedy show completely on our own terms and without any meddling or anybody else involved," Tim says.

It was during that time that Tim and Eric were asked to create a number of short films for HBO's "Funny or Die Presents." "People really responded to what we did, which was a more narrative kind of story, rather than a sketch show," Tim notes. "As far back as film school, we had always wanted to make a movie. And I think that let us know we were ready to tackle a feature length project."

Tim and Eric brought some ideas to Funny or Die creators Will Ferrell, Andy McKay and Chris Henchy. "We didn't want to do a sketch movie, with a whole weird world of costume-y characters. But, at the same time, we wanted to make a really, really funny, gut-punching silly, silly movie. So it became a matter of figuring out a story that wasn't going to get in the way of the comedy, but, at the same time, not be a sketch movie. We wanted to make a movie that had tons and tons of jokes and surprising, crazy, weird shit, but also engage you in a way that made you care about what was going on."

The result, of course, is TIM AND ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE, about two Hollywood-tweaked morons who blow a billion dollars making a brief, lousy movie and have to find a way to pay back their investor. "One of the themes that makes us laugh and has always been funny to us is two incompetent guys, like these two, trying to be successful," Eric explains. "It dates back to all the stuff that's on Cable Access and bad commercials. These two dumb guys that will do anything to get ahead and that easily fall into this douchebag world. Their friendship is based on trying to be successful and being liked." Adds Tim, "It somewhat paralleled our lives, in that when we moved out to Los Angeles, people were, like, 'Who would give these morons any amount of money to make anything on TV?' We always loved that idea."

The idea of making a movie about movies also appealed to them, he says. "We wanted to make kind of a meta-movie, where we're always revealing another 'fourth wall,' to make the audience feel like they're on unstable ground the whole time -- to make something that should be a real mindfuck, playing with the medium of movies as much as we can," including fourth wall chats with the audience, several weird "Understanding Your Movie" interstitials and, of course, bad commercials. "If Tim and Eric are going to make a movie, to be sure, we're going to be commenting about what it's like to watch a movie and what movies are."

The film, in fact, starts with a fellow named "Chef Goldblum" (who looks suspiciously like actor Jeff Goldblum), hawking something called the Schlaaang Super Seat. Okay. . . it is Jeff Goldblum. "He's a friend that we worked with early, on 'Tom Goes to the Mayor,' and just liked the strange environment we had at our office," Eric explains. "And he's been game for everything since."

The film, in fact, is peppered with well-known actors, mostly fellow sketch artists, performing in unusual -- and very funny -- roles. "We don't really work with a lot of other traditional sketch comedians -- mostly just the handful of people you see in the movie," Tim notes. "The trick was to figure out how to use them in the best way, and to make their characters appropriate for them and work them into the story. It was really hard, and it took a long time, to dial in exactly who was going to do what. We didn't want it to just feel like a parade of famous people that we know, where you just saw somebody pop in. They're woven into the story appropriately."

The Seat itself is clearly the perfect way to enjoy any movie: there are stirrups to support the legs (which the ladies in the audience will find uncomfortably familiar), a built-in automatic popcorn machine complete with hot butter dispenser, an air tube to blow appropriate exotic odors up your nose, and needles to inject chemicals into your veins to "synchronize your emotions with the movie." As Chef Goldblum says, "If you're not sittin' in a Schlaaang Super Seat -- you're just not sittin' down!"

"We had earlier drafts of the script that had 10 or 15 pages of all these movie jokes, a lot of them takes on 'Go get your candy, popcorn and soda,'" Tim explains. "We wanted to try to milk every moment of what it's like to go see a movie. A lot of them got cut, for time, but we knew the Super Seat was really key to set the tone of the film right away, that this wasn't going to be your normal comedy."

Seen calibrating the seat for us is actor Frank Slayton, one of many "The Awesome Show" regulars seen in the film. "He's just one of these great utility actors in L.A. that we grew fond of, because of his expressions and how he looks."

Once settled in one's Super Seat, it's time to enjoy Tim and Eric's billion dollar handiwork -- "Diamond Jim" -- which, as all movies do these days, starts with a ridiculous number of production company logos. "We had about 20 of those, but the ones that made it in the movie were so good and funny, that the joke was good on its own," Tim explains -- everything from a formal Schlaaang logo to a hip "Schlaaang 21" boutique production company one, to the DTS-like "Schlaaang Sound" logo. "We actually pressed very hard to not have the real logos -- from Magnet, Funny or Die and our logos, because it would just kill the joke. We had to beg, and they were really cool about making an exemption for us."

The billion dollar movie itself, "Diamond Jim," stars super-giant-mega-star Johnny Depp. . . . right? "That's just another play on traditional Hollywood movies and what these two morons would think would be the makings of the best movie that could be made," laughs Eric. "The biggest production value, with lots of diamonds, a bad love scene and trying to get the biggest star."

The onscreen Tim and Eric apparently had to settle for Depp impersonator Ronnie Rodriguez (though they don't appear to have figured that out) -- as did their real-life counterparts. Says Tim, "It's funny -- sometimes limitations work to your advantage. Our original idea was, 'Let's see if we can get the biggest movie star possible to do this.' And we really only had a couple of names that we thought would work -- like Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp. Because if it's not 'a movie star,' it's not funny." The big name folks were indeed approached, but alas weren't available, so an impersonator was drafted. "In a way, it's funnier, because these idiots thought they had Johnny Depp, and they didn't. And, frankly, when you first see him onscreen, you're wondering 'Maybe that could be him?'"

Filmed on downtown L.A.'s historic Olvera Street, the brief-but-expensive movie finds Diamond Jim making woo with a French waitress, played by none other than "Smallville's" Lois Lane, ERICA DURANCE. The film ends with a uselessly over-the-top pull-out crane shot. "That was in the early meetings -- something that would blow everybody away with, 'Look at where all the money went. . . and that's all there is,'" Tim laughs.

Not happy at all with the misuse of his funds is executive Tommy Schlaaang, Jr., played with furious gusto by ROBERT LOGGIA. "We had the idea of Schlaaang as this giant corporation that probably makes all kinds of stuff, and their film department is just one of their many companies." In discussions with their casting director, Tim and Eric were keen to get a "Robert Loggia type," until, Tim says, 'It took us a while to finally just say, 'Why don't we ask Robert Loggia to do it?' He had done 'Tom Goes to the Mayor,' so he was already familiar with us, and I think he enjoyed it. He's just a really happy, fun guy."

Joining Loggia as his equally-nasty right-hand man, Earle Swinton, is WILLIAM ATHERTON, an actor known for playing such unlikeable types. "We're very particular where we use comics and where we use straight men, in order to make this movie not feel like a costume piece," Tim notes.

So had the real Tim & Eric ever run across a Schlaaang-type in their own Hollywood journey? "Fairly early on, we were actually courted by -- and met with -- Michael Eisner," Tim recalls. "He had this idea for an animated show, but we were just a little too green and a little too busy. But we had a couple of meetings with him, and it was just surreal. He's a mogul. But he was very cool."

The Tim & Eric we see at this point in the film don't look anything like the Tim & Eric we all know and love. They are, as Eric puts it, "Hollywood douchebags." He adds, "You know, dark tan, lots of jewelry and accessories, sculpted hair and sculpted facial hair," and plenty of New Age chatter. And, of course, the man purse. "I was really particular on keeping that purse."

The two have had plenty of opportunity to meet such folk over their many years living and working in Hollywood. "We did a short film called 'L.A. Guys,' when we first moved to L.A. Sort of like a message to our old friends back on the East Coast, letting them know what happens when you move to L.A." Adds Tim, though, "We're pretty good about keeping an arm's length distance from the idiocracy out here. We make fun of it, but we never have to deal with it in real life."

Which gets down to one important question: how much of their onscreen Tim & Eric counterparts are the real Tim & Eric like? "The Tim & Eric you see on TV and in the movie are. . . characters," Eric says firmly. "Tim and I started as best friends, living together in college. But Tim and I would never sleep with each other's loves or poison each other." Well, okay then.

Tim insists his cohort is particularly good at delivering that other Eric. "Eric's character is really great at saying horrible things in a really dry, earnest, sincere way, that comes across. . . you know, sick. Like an evil psycho-killer, really. He can talk about romance and about sex, and it's really funny and quite disturbing."

After their tough chat with Schlaaang, Tim & Eric return to their Hollywood Hills mansion, a large, expensive-looking, modern lair, complete with a swimming pool in the living room. "That's actually a porno house we rented," Eric explains. "A lot of the mansions we've used over the years are also porno houses, because they're very cheap to rent. We're no strangers to the porn set." Tim & Eric fans apparently enjoy both genres of film. "We'll shoot stuff, and then, when it airs, our fans will send us images of porn actors having sex on the couch that we were working on!"

It is at that house that Tim & Eric realize they must fire their high-dollar personal assistant, Jim Joe Kelly. "The funny thing is, there are a lot of hippy-dippy types out here that have a lot of money to hire their friends to do stupid things," Eric explains. "There's just a lot of money, but they're holding onto these funny ideals, and that's how you get that kind of spiritual mentor. You're depressed, and sort of like a New Age therapist."

The two decide to drown their sorrows and do "all kinds of crazy things" at their favorite club, Circus Disco -- including Eric having a tattoo guy use a large metal hook to pierce his large. . . . . uh. . . . . "I wear a size 14 shoe," he explains. "That was actually a real painful scene for me. I'm still trying to get that sewn back up, but it's a long, complicated process. But that's the dedication that Tim and Eric bring to the big screen."

In the restroom, the boys see Damien Weebs' cheesy TV spot, the first of many such commercial parodies throughout the film. "We knew early on that we wanted to pepper the movie with these breaks, that would take the audience out of the movie," Tim explains. "The trick was how to make that work, but also be forwarding the story and not just become a diversion. It became obvious, when the story needed a jolt of a ramp-up narrative, you could just do these great commercials that helped explain things."

The look is, of course, the pure Tim & Eric their fans love, with crappy edits, cheap effects and the obvious used car dealer references (like Weebs making a point by looking over his sunglasses). "We shoot these on green screen, and we're not too worried about what we're gonna get, because when we give it to our editors, they tend to add a whole other layer and level of jokes" -- and sometimes add themselves into the mix. "The two guys in the spot that look kinda like us are actually one of our editors and our producer. Whenever there's an opportunity to have a stand-in with a close resemblance to us, we always put them in."

Eric also finds what is likely his first love while viewing the commercial there in the men's room, in the form of mall tenant Katie Hill (TWINK KAPLAN). "It was love at first sight," he notes, ". . . while I was taking a leak. A lot of things can happen while you're in the latrine."

Kaplan had appeared before on "The Awesome Show," and seemed the perfect fit for Eric's (and Tim's) love interest. "We wanted my love interest to be just a little skewed to a slightly more mature woman." Adds Tim, "She's just not really appropriate for us." Kaplan's wonderfully good -- and brave -- nature made for a wonderful choice. "She's got a goofy, quirky kind of quality to her. I mean, her name's 'Twink.'"

The fellas decide to jump in, and immediately come up with a new business entity: Dobis P.R. "These guys don't know anything about business -- they think that as long as you have a name for your business, you have a business," Tim laughs, noting the equally inappropriate addition of the "P.R." to Dobis. "We just thought, these guys don't know what they're talking about -- this isn't what P.R. companies do! They think that if they pepper their language with business-sounding things, that makes them business people. I think that probably makes us laugh the most." Besides, they've got uniforms with logos, so that's that.

In the cheap Wagon Wheel Restaurant & Motel, the two new execs decide they must shed their Hollywood appearances and personas if Weebs is to take them seriously as businessmen. They sit in the tub together, helping rid each other of their Hollywood. . . crap. "We had had this great vision for the Hollywood douchebag look, but we really wanted to be the classic Tim & Eric, and not characters, as much as possible," Tim says. "And this kind of transformation is really classic storytelling. You know, you always have the caterpillar turning into the butterfly." In this case, it's the butterfly turning into the caterpillar.

Eric has his first love scene with Katie -- okay, about Katie -- as he takes advantage of himself in bed next to his uncomfortable business partner. "I couldn't control myself," he says. "I really felt, that at that particular moment, I just had to explore those feelings."

And then there are those squishy sounds that accompany his activity (and heard whenever something squeamish occurs in the film). "We loved those loud, inappropriate sound effects for everything we did. And we sent the cut over to the sound designers, with big notes saying, 'Please -- you're gonna hear a lot of squooshiness and gross things -- please keep those original sounds in.' They are very important to us." Notes Tim, "It adds a layer of classic cartoony comedy throughout our work. It's kind of like a Three Stooges heightened reality, particularly in the sound effects. And even us sleeping together in the same bed is kind of Stooge-like," he laughs.

The next morning, they march across the desert to their destination to the tune of "Two Horses," sung by none other than Aimee Mann. "We wanted to add that layer of faux seriousness to the scene. We wanted real music in this montage, which is the moment when Tim and Eric leave Hollywood and go on their journey. It's sort of the real beginning of the movie, so we wanted something poignant there. Aimee's been a friend of the show, and she just did a beautiful job with the song."

The boys eventually reach the object of their obsession: the nearly-defunct Swallow Valley Mall and Pizza Court. "From the beginning, we were talking about using the state of the country, particularly the depression/recession, as a theme in the film," Tim says. Originally, the plan was to use a depressed small town, but for practical reasons, that was changed to a mall. "That was fine, because we thought of the mall as a microcosm of a town anyway. You can have all the same kinds of businesses, etc., and instead of a mayor, you have a guy that runs the mall." Besides, malls have always played a big role in Tim and Eric humor. "We're constantly referencing malls and mini-malls and shitty American consumerism. Plus, it became a great place to put characters. Funny stores and funny people that run the stores -- it just seemed like a good stage for our comedy to exist on."

The mall used for the production was the now-closed Desert Fashion Plaza, located in the heart of Palm Springs. "We found places that were closer to L.A.," Tim says, "but some of them were actually dangerous, for health reasons. And even that mall required serious decontaminating! But it was ideal -- a bit of a time capsule from the early 90s or late 80s, which is our sweet spot."

The "Dawn of the Dead"-like mall, at least as seen in the film, is filled with stores with bizarre names -- due, in part, to legal requirements which forced the art department to obliterate real store names by mixing up letters on existing store signs. "Our favorite one was a women's clothing store called 'SHASH,'" Tim recalls. "It made us laugh every time we said the word."

On the character Taquito, played by a long time collaborator:"We wanted him to be this really disgusting, sore-filled man," something which the actor executes with revolting perfection. "Taquito is almost like a monster in the movie," Eric says. "We wanted something at that mall that has been there for a while, like a custodian gone awry. And we love the really horrible premise of a family leaving a boy at the mall, to be raised by wolves." Adds Tim, "He particularly liked dressing up like a little boy -- he wanted us to get him a small child's clothing, so that he would have to stretch into it."

Just in case you don't know what's going on at this point in the film, the first of several "Understanding Your Movie" interstitials help spell things out. "These go back to the kind of instructional videos and cable access things that we really love. They're more of the classic Tim & Eric," Eric says. "They sort of tell you how to feel and what to do in this self-help kind of way -- which is ridiculous, because it's not that complicated."

The pieces feature two unique actors -- Robert Axelrod and Tennessee Winston -- two "Awesome Show" regulars. "Over the years, we've accumulated a bunch of friends who are actors in Hollywood that have a very special gift of making us laugh with these awkward performances."

Another tenant the two run across, while trying to figure out which stores probably aren't drawing in the crowds, is used toilet paper king Reggie (MATT O'TOOLE). "That's one of those jokes we figure might sit with you until the next day when you're thinking about the movie, when you'll realize how bad that actually is," Tim notes. And Tim's immediate father-son relationship is another thing the filmmakers hope will make one squirm. "It's like the other love story in the movie, even though it's more of a father-son love story -- and still very inappropriate. We thought it would be really funny to accelerate this relationship within, like, 30 seconds. It all happens within two or three sentences -- 'I'm gonna be your dad, and this guy's no longer your dad.' All of a sudden, for the rest of the movie, this kid's by my side the whole time. This little family starts coming together. . . "

After Eric attempts a date with Katie at gimmick restaurant "Inbreadables" (viewing bread-pun comic king JAMES QUALL, an L.A. area comic Tim and Eric are fond of), he becomes ill from his pal's li'l yellow pill, and is brought to the Shrim Healing Center for, uh. . . treatment. Tim & Eric first spot the Center earlier in the film, viewing an in-the-window video featuring its founder, DooneStrutts, played by RAY WISE, a Tim and Eric favorite.

"It's kind of like, you come up with the diarrhea bath idea, and then you work backwards until you create a place for that world," Tim says. Of the bath concept itself, Eric explains, "We're always trying to out-brown each other. We thought about what's the most disgusting brown joke we could think of, and multiple boy diarrhea in a bathtub seemed like the worst." It took a few takes to get things right, the boys first having to get the giggles out before they could get their Shrim out. And, in case you're wondering, that's a healthy mixture of soy milk and oatmeal (for that authentic texture) standing in for the Shrim. "The nice thing was, they heated it up, so it wouldn't be too cold on me."

So did the treatment work? "Yes, I found my 'inner Shrim.' Absolutely," Eric says.

While Eric was having all that brown fun, Tim was busy with Katie over at Simon's enjoying a sexual smorgasbord. "Twink was game for it, but I had to kinda psych myself up and get it done as quickly as possible," Tim admits. The enormous head-mounted dildo truly seems to have left its mark. "That thing left a nice, big round red mark on my forehead for over a day," he laughs. "I just didn't know where else to put it."

The catalog of sexual acrobatics the two perform could only have come from appropriately sick minds. "We just thought, 'Let's do the opposite of what sex should look like.' Twink was nice and light, which made things easier." Eric was most impressed. "His lovemaking skills were just. . . I have never seen another actor take it to that level and do those innovative moves. It's new shit he's pulling out there."

Not surprisingly, the diarrhea-and-sex combination ends in a fight between the two faux executives, with some particularly good, cheesy slow-motion punches -- you know, like they do on TV. "We've been pretending to not fight for years," Tim says. "That's not a very believable fight scene -- even though we had a stunt coordinator. But we think it's pretty funny."

The two make up, just in time to get the mall open, though their biggest challenge is yet to come: stopping Schlaaang and his group of heavies. Sadly, Eric doesn't get to consummate his love for Katie (that is, with her present), driving him into his own slo-mo rage, complete with slo-mo yells. "That took three months of training," he says proudly.

But, say, don't all those blood-spurting headless Schlaaang-and-gang bodies look kinda cheesy? "We had big plans for those, with really big special effects shot blood fountains," Tim explains. "And actually none of it worked. But whenever we showed anyone the rough cut, with just the mannequins, everyone laughed at it, so we decided to keep it like that."

Producer Will Ferrell provided his proteges Tim & Eric with practical behind-the-scenes direction. "He, along with his company, Gary Sanchez, came along with Adam McKay, and they were a huge help in getting us in the door with a lot of our financiers," Tim says. "They also gave some really valuable creative notes, early on in the writing process." But the most important things Ferrell and company gave the duo was creative freedom. "They just told us, 'We'll back you up. You write your own script. You know what to do. We're not going to interfere." The team found the same was true of executive producers Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner. "Todd looked at our script and just said, 'This is funny to me. Go try to do this. Do what you guys think is funny."

In the end, Tim & Eric, though they no longer have Katie or li'l Jeffrey, still have each other. And TIM AND ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE is about just that: love, betrayal and friendship.

"At its core, the movie is about these two guys and their little journey together, and the hills and valleys that their friendship goes through," Tim explains. "They surmount the mountain, and, no matter what, they'll always be friends." Adds Eric, "We'll do anything to keep our friendship together. And save this mall. Even if it's sacrificing our son and losing our true love. Because Dobis, as you know, is the most important thing."