YouTube Stars JennXPenn, LoveLaurenElizabeth Cross Over To GRB’s First Film
Bad Night, the latest crossover project with big names from online video, will feature YouTube stars Lauren Elizabeth Luthringshausen (better known online as LoveLaurenElizbeth) and Jenn McAllister (aka, JennXPenn), said GRB Entertainment in announcing its first film.
Luthringshausen has more than 850,000 followers of her YouTube channel, and long-time YouTuber McAllister has 1.8 million subscribers.
Casey Wilson, Adam Pally, Matt Walsh, Judy Marte, Eric Edelstein, Gareth Reynolds, James Kirkland, Julianna Guill and Owen Smith will co-star.
The film was written by Daniel Kinno and will be directed by Nick and Chris Riedell (who created one of the first big YouTube crossover films, Camp Takota). The film will be produced by the two YouTube stars, AJ Tesler, Byron Austen Ashley and Rana Zand. The latter two represent both Luthringshausen and McAllister for Big Frame, the talent-management unit of AwesomenessTV.
The movie is the story of two high schoolers who try to liven up a field trip, but choose the wrong car to get into, possibly putting their lives in danger. In keeping with the project’s unusual nature, casting was settled first, then the director, writer and GRB’s creative team developed the script. Two weeks of production start Tuesday after the film’s announcement at this weekend’s huge Playlist Live social-media gathering in Orlando.
“It’s a new way to make a film, and I think a process that will be repeated over and over again as these digital-influencer movies become more commonplace,” said Tesler. “The creative freedom that GRB has afforded me and my team to make the movie the way we wanted to, with the story we wanted to, has been spectacular, and that’s a large reason everyone working on this is so excited about this.”
GRB President Gary R. Benz said the company hopes to use the approach to create other film projects for “a multitude” of YouTubers, whose tight relationships with their big followings are a built-in marketing channel of great power. The company is previously best known for its unscripted shows for TV and other distribution platforms around the world, such as Intervention on A&E, Diagnose Me for Discovery Life, and #redflag for HLN.
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