The last time we did the Mondo Mystery Movie dance, it was October of 2011. For that event, the good folks at Mondo/the Alamo Drafthouse arranged for a dozen charter bussesâ worth of film geeks and poster fans to be ferried (via police escort) across Austin to a nearly-abandoned mall swarming with âzombiesâ, at which time we were all shown an extremely special screening of George Romeroâs Dawn of The Dead. Nine months later, the Mondo Mystery Movie returned to Austin, andâas you mightâve already heardâthe results were fantastic. Read on for my report from Mondo Mystery Movie 10, my fellow limited paper enthusiasts.Last night, if youâd wandered into theater two at the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, hereâs what you wouldâve seen: Elijah Wood, staring back at a sold-out crowd of films geeks and poster nerds (all of whomâitâs worth mentioningâ have been drinking beer in the sun all afternoon). Next to him is Justin Ishmael, creative director of the Alamo Drafthouseâs movie-poster powerhouse, Mondo. The two have just revealed that the heavily buzzed-about tenth Mondo Mystery Movie will beâ¦1996âs Flipper? The audience is confused.âDoes anyone have any questions?â Wood asks.Without skipping a beat, someone calls out, âDid Flipper ever touch you in your no-no place?âWood starts to respond (âWell, Iââ), and then someone else yells out, âDid Paul Hogan ever touch you in your no-no place?!âThus began Mondoâs tenth Mystery Movie, whichâas it turns outâwas not 1996âs Flipper.  Instead, the assembled crowd of limited paper enthusiasts was treated to a flat-out amazing (and lengthy) screening of Peter Jacksonâs Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King (Directorâs Cut). We already showed you what Aaron Horkeyâs amazing Return of The King print looks like, but here it is again, for those that managed to sleep through last nightâs awesomeness:
- THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
- Artist: Aaron Horkey
- Size: 19.25 x 39
- Edition: 260 (regular), 125 (variant)
Holy Soiled Pants, Batman. Thatâs a serious set of prints, right there. For those that didnât catch last nightâs announcement, this behemoth weighs in at a massive 19.25x40â, the inks on that variant are, in fact, metallic (fun fact: if you look at the print rightside up, the lighter ink appears to be silver, but when looked at from top-down, the ink appears to be goldâitâs insane), and every last one of the prints in this run is signed by artist Aaron Horkey. Oh, and the variant edition is numbered out of 125, while the regularâs a slightly-larger 260.
Why the overages? BadassDigest is reporting that the remaining prints will go up for sale online (ââ¦.eventuallyâ), but the word on the street in Austin yesterdayâduring a lengthy wait for 7pm to roll aroundâwas that the remaining prints would probably be popping up at the 2012 San Diego Comic Con, which is just days away from kicking into high gear. In either event, this is the first Mondo Mystery Movie we can recall that offered more prints in the run than there were seats in the theater.
But that probably has a little something to do with the announcement of Mondoâs acquisition of the Lord of The Rings license: a license this big doesnât come along every day, and offering a few extras on top of this screenprint means that a few lucky LOTR fans who werenât in Austin last night will have a shot at picking one of these up once they go on sale. Oh, sure, itâll be tough to score whether it ends up online or at Comic Conâthatâs the nature of the beast, folksâbut thatâs better than having no chance to score at all, right? To misquote Lloyd Christmas: theyâre sayingâ¦.thereâs a chance.
So, youâve seen the print, but how was the event?
Some line-campers arrived as early as 8am yesterday morning, quickly establishing a base camp of sorts along the row of picnic tables outside the S. Lamar Alamo Drafthouse. By noon, there were roughly 50 people camped out, everyone milling about, fraternizing, soaking up some of the Drafthouseâs gloriously cold booze. The temperature was skirting an even 100 throughout the afternoon, and despite the fact that we remained outside until close to showtime, spirits remained high: Mondo fans played the âWhat movie will it end up being?!â guessing game that always accompanies a Mondo Mystery Movie screening, talked posters, and generally nursed hangovers from the night before (there was a massive poster-swap/BBQ held at Limited Paper HQ the day before; see photo at the end of this page).
Around 4:30 or 5pm, Mondoâs Mo Shafeek came out and worked his way up the line, giving everyone whoâd been waiting their first chance to toss down the $175 necessary to secure a variant edition ofâ¦well, whatever the Mystery Print turned out to be. There was a small amount of hemming and hawing from the crowd when they realized they were going to have to toss down such a sizable wad of cash without getting a look at the poster first, but those folks quickly came to their senses: any time a Mondo print runs over the normal $50 price point, itâs generally something extra special (and, as it turned out, thatâs precisely what it was: the variant edition of Horkeyâs Return of The King is dumbfoundingly awesome in person).
Once Mo had finished variant-selling his way through the line, everyone filed into the Alamo Drafthouse lobby to finish out the wait:Â by that point, there was just over 90 minutes until showtime, and rumors were flying fast and furious.
We heard (yet again) that the movie would be Jaws. We heard that there were going to be multiple posters, not just one. We heard that the poster was drawn by Martin Ansin. We heard that this would be a surprise screening of Blade Runner, and that MMMX would turn out to tie into the Drafthouseâs ongoing Summer of â82 series. And yes, there were rumors that the film might be Lord of The Rings. But almost everyone who had their fingers crossed on that front was also guessing that weâd be seeing Fellowship of The Ring: virtually no one guessed that Return of The King would screen.  Almost of these rumors turned out to be nonsense, of course, butâas alwaysâit was fun playing âWhat if?â up until the last moment.
When Ishmael introduced Elijah Wood to the crowd, itâs probably fair to say that most people in the crowd knew right then and there that Lord of The Rings was being kicked off at MMMX. Wood and Ishmael played a brief game with the crowd, however, both of them talking about a âreally important, successful filmâ based on a âbeloved seriesâ that âmeans so much to so many peopleâ without coming right out and naming the film-in-question. It was at that point that the eveningâs film was ârevealedâ as Flipper, whichâas we noted earlierâwas followed immediately with Wood being asked if heâd been âtouched in his no-no placeâ by Crocodile Dundee.
Perhaps in a nod to the first Mondo Mystery Movieâwhere ten minutes of Jim Carreyâs The Mask was played before the eveningâs real film, Akira, screenedâIshmael and company then played the first 10 minutes or so of Flipper (which, by the way, I was actually kind of getting into right around the time they shut it off: any film whose first 10 minutes features Spaghetti-Oâs, dolphins being shot by Mike from Breaking Bad, and Crocodile Dundee using a blowtorch to make toast will always get my seal of approval). After that, the directorâs cut of Lord of The Rings: Return of The King began, andâ¦well, if youâve ever seen that particular directorâs cut, you know itâs lengthy.
Around 11:30pm, the film ended, and Grammy-winning Mondo overlord (thatâs not whatâs on his business cards, but it should be) Rob Jones took to the stage to reveal Aaron Horkeyâs amazing poster. The crowd got a good gawk in at the print, quickly fled into the lobby to snatch up their prints (in a nice touch, these were handed out from the old, pre-Mondo Gallery Mondo-store location inside the Lamar Drafthouse), and then hung around outside excitedly chattering about the long-ass day that had just come to a close.
All in all, this was one of the best Mondo Mystery Movie events Iâve personally attended, and not just because a Lord of The Rings filmâany LOTR film, for that matterâis pretty tough to beat: with each new Mondo-hosted event here in Austin, the Mondo fanbase grows a little more, and with that growth comes an ever-expanding community of like-minded poster collectors. Itâs great to interact with fellow fans at these events, and there seems to be remarkably little drama whenever such a get-together takes place. Landing the LOTR license, artist Aaron Horkey, and Elijah Wood was a major coup for Mondo on this one, and sets the bar even higher for Mondo Mystery Movie XI.
Special thanks to Justin Ishmael, Mo Shafeek, Justin B, the rest of the Mondo team, Billy Garret (photos), the fine folks at both Fons PR (Brandy rocks!) and the Alamo Drafthouse, and everyone that attended the DrScott BBQ on July 4th:Â this was one of the all-time best 4th of July celebrations Iâve ever been a part of, and the fact that Iâve got a giant-ass Horkey print to commemorate that celebration is one helluva cherry on top of an already-amazing cake.
Stay tuned for more from Limited Paper in the days ahead: weâre headed to Comic Con this week, and are going to have a number of amazing prints to show you starting on July 11th. Before we get to that, though, weâve got one or two more installments of Limited Paper to dump in your laps, so keep your eyes trained on Collider.com for more info on the Breaking Bad screenprint series, Tom Whalenâs journey to the Land of The Lost, and much, much more. As always, you can sound off in the comments section below if youâve got anything youâd like to add to all this!