Today, being the 1st of November here in Australia, I started my November Challenge.
My November Challenge is walking a minimum of 45 minutes every day of the month, and abstaining from salt and sugar for the entire month.
It’s going to be hard.
I have travel coming up this month – fortunately only internal domestic travel – but even so that makes exercise difficult. And I notice that some of you have suggested that I take the occasional rest day.
Nup.
One of the difficulties I will face is my knee. Those of you who have read my Camino memoir, The Way, My Way, or seen the movie, know that I have a bung knee. Basically, my knee joint lacks cartilage. Or to use the vernacular, it’s bone-on-bone.
I refuse to get a knee replacement. And so my knee continues to be an issue. I’ve developed a way of walking that minimises the pain, and yet it’s still bothersome. And sometimes it’s downright agony. So I’ll see how that plays out over the month.
But this morning, first day of the Challenge, I felt great. It was a beautiful fresh Spring morning and I walked for 54 minutes – 4kms – so it wasn’t too demanding. In Mudgee people I meet on my walk want to chat, so I stop and chat, and that messes with my stats somewhat – but this isn’t about pushing myself. This is about consistency.
November is going to be a challenging month for a lot of us, I believe.
The US elections and its aftermath are going to dominate world attention for a period, and yes I’m sure the outcome, whichever way it goes, will be challenging for some.
My November challenge is something else.
It’s been 6 ½ years since I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and next year I have one of the most physically demanding periods of my life coming up.
There’s a chance that I might be shooting my Indian thriller, Those that Love, Those that Kill, in January and part of Feb in northern India. It will be a tough shoot.
Even if that doesn’t happen, come mid February Jennifer and I embark on a gruelling Q&A tour of the US, doing 30 screenings of The Way, My Way right across the US in 35 days.
That’s a punishing schedule even for a young ‘un. And I’m no longer a young ‘un! Hence, my November challenge.
I need to get fit for the year coming up. Already I’ve been ramping up my exercise routine, but I need to do more. Plus, I have two addictions that I have to tame: Salt & Sugar.
I put excessive salt on everything. Crazy, right? But that’s the nature of addiction. Plus I am addicted to chocolate of an evening.
Both have to stop. I need to break the craving, and the only way I can do that is to take the nuclear option.
So here is my November Challenge:
I’ll walk at least 45 minutes a day, every day. If I can’t walk for whatever reason, I’ll do 45 minutes on an indoor bike. But every day for the month of November I’ll walk or bike a minimum of 45mins.
I’ll cut salt from my diet completely. By that, I mean I won’t add salt to a meal.
I’ll cut sugar from my diet completely. No chocolate, no desserts, no cakes or sweets. No lemon and chocolate gelato ice creams, which I love.
There’s no doubt that #3, cutting sugar, will be the hardest.
And you might think that walking 45 minutes a day for a Camino walker is no big deal. But you have to understand that my Parkinson’s disease has severely limited my ability to walk long distances. It’s taken me quite some time to even do 45 minutes at a reasonable clip.
So to do it every day for a month is going to be challenging. But I’ll be using my Nordic walking poles, and that helps enormously.
I’ll do a weekly audit on this blog. I’ll detail what I’ve done the previous week. If I falter, I’ll tell you.
This is going to be tough. But tomorrow it starts!
Why don’t you do your own version of a November Challenge too, and we’ll do it together?
It’s taken a little while, but we’ve finally found the right distributors to handle our film, The Way, My Way in several key territories, including the US and Canada.
We’ll make a formal announcement in the trades in the very near future, but we can say that the movie is coming to North America in the early Spring, 2025. It will play the top 50 markets in the US, and we expect it to expand to 500+ screens. Perhaps more if it kicks in, like it did in Australia.
In Australia and New Zealand we ended up on about 320 screens, and the movie played for 20 weeks in cinemas. It made close to $2.5m in ANZ, just from theatrical box office.
Jennifer and I will be attending preview Q&A screenings in the US, and we’ll be accompanied by Johnnie Walker for quite a few of those screenings, along with Leigh Brennan. She’ll act as MC for some of the screenings.
In April the movie opens wide in cinemas across Germany. Jennifer and I once again will be supporting the film with Q&A screenings, alongside our Executive Producer based in Munich, Rudi Wiesmeier.
In September the film will open wide in cinemas across Italy. Ivan the Terrible and His Beautiful Wife Giovanna will be promoting the film in their home territory.
We’re currently in discussions with other distributors in other territories, and there’ll be more announcements shortly.
Thank you all for your patience. It’s taken a little while for our Foreign Sales Agent, Simon Crowe in London, alongside our other EP Marc Wooldridge (consulting on foreign) to find absolutely the right distributors to handle the film. For instance, the Italian distributors have walked the Camino several times. They get the movie.
This is a film that needs nurturing. But handled with care and attention, as Marc proved in Australia through his company Maslow Entertainment, The Way, My Way can find a sizeable and highly engaged audience. Many saw the movie multiple times.
So, in a few months, America, here we come! The rest of the world to follow!
I have a little time at the moment to reflect- on this past eighteen months with the making and initial distribution of The Way, My Way – but also time to reflect on larger matters.
Last week we finished our cinema run in Australia of The Way, My Way. It ran for 20 weeks in Australia, and it’s still screening in New Zealand. A 20 week theatrical run for a movie in this day and age is remarkable.
The film now begins its life online – it’s available on all the major platforms in Australia and NZ – and those that missed seeing it in the cinema will have the chance to see it at home.
Early next year we begin the global rollout- first the US, then Europe following shortly after. Again, Jennifer and I will support the US release with Q&As, and once again we’ll be joined by Johnnie Walker who’ll travel with us across the States, attending select screenings.
Looking forward to that!
To say that the response to the film has exceeded our expectations is a massive understatement. Before the Australian premiere, I would have been delighted with a 3-4 week run. Totally delighted. For it to run 20 weeks is still something I find quite mind-blowing.
Whether audiences overseas will take to the movie with such eagerness is yet to be determined. We’ll see. Again, I have low expectations. All I hope is that like in Australia, the Camino community will see it as truly authentic to the Camino spirit.
Whilst I have some down time, I’m keeping busy.
Jennifer and I are waiting for the finance to fall into place on a large budget thriller set in India that we’ve been working on for some time with Australian based producer Anupam Sharma. It’s called Those that Love, Those that Kill, and it’s based on a true story of a double honour killing. Hopefully that will have us shooting in India in the New Year.
I have the film on Hope still to finish, which will be the third film in my Journey series, the first two being PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System, and Facing Fear. We’re halfway through shooting Hope, but it will have to wait till I have more time.
So I’m using my time to write. I’m finishing off a novel called Dead Image, which Penguin Random House is tracking. They published my supernatural thriller trilogy Palace of Fires.
I’ve also started a new book – non-fiction – called If I can Change, You can Too. It’s a factual account of the massive changes I’ve gone through over the past ten years, and it gives pointers to how you can change too. Should you wish to…
I’ve yet to wrap my head around the book associated with my film Facing Fear. I need to do it, because the companion book to my film PGS Intuition has been selling quite well. But once again, I need to find a three month block of uninterrupted time when I can focus on it.
In a few months though I’ll have another book hitting the bookshops. It’s called Posts from a blog that became a book that became a film – The Way, My Way. It’s a compilation book of all the posts I wrote before, during and after my first Camino, plus posts from the Portuguese Camino I did the following year. All up, 120 posts, including photos.
It’s been a big job pulling that all together.
And then there’s the sequel to The Way, My Way, which Jennifer and I will swing into after the Indian movie, which we’ll be commencing in September next year, 2025. And after that there’s the alien film which I’ve been developing for many years, called They’re Here! It’s a comedy set in a small remote outback town.
I’m busier now than I’ve ever been. I feel as though finally, I’ve reached a stage where I have a level of craft competency coupled with a honed story-sense that enables me to work efficiently and at a high level.
Whether what I work on will be successful is in the lap of the Gods, but I’ll let you in on a little secret – Jennifer and I are having the best time!
But on those few occasions when it has happened, invariably I’m surprised, and grateful. Grateful because I’ve tasted failure many times. And so my reaction to success is now the same as my reaction to failure:
So what…
Success doesn’t mean anything, nor does failure. They’re flip sides of the same coin.
You need to fail to achieve success. In many ways failure is a prerequisite for success. My experience is that to succeed, you need to step outside the box, to stand uncomfortable, to risk humiliation. To be prepared to be crushed.
I’ve been crushed many times. It’s not pleasant, let me tell you. But to achieve anything in this life you have to get back up, spit the blood from your mouth, and go back to work again.
My success is this recent film I’ve made.
For me, the success the film has achieved isn’t its box office or the acclaim it’s received, it’s that people have gone to the cinema and come away feeling good. Feeling inspired. Feeling empowered.
That to me is success.
Some kind people have said I deserve this success.
They’ve seen me struggle. They’ve seen me hurt. They’re seen how hard I’ve worked, for so many years, without any apparent benefit.
They say I deserve all these good things now and I say thank you, but silently I say no I don’t. I don’t deserve anything. The world, the Universe, doesn’t owe me anything.
No matter how hard I’ve worked, what risks I’ve taken, I’m not entitled to success.
Just as I’m not entitled to failure.
I’m very suspicious of this word deserve.
The word lacks humility. It lacks grace. It speaks to me of ego-based entitlement. Of expectation. Of sought-for outcomes. That’s a space I don’t wish to inhabit.
I don’t deserve anything.
Is success preferable to failure? To answer that I have to ask myself: What is success?
For me, it’s that I finished the film and it’s the film I wished to make. How fortunate am I?
This is a question that I’m being constantly asked. So let me explain how it works.
For starters, the film is, in Johnnie Walker’s words, brand new. It was only finally completed about 4 weeks ago.
For the film to be screened in the US, and in other territories outside Australia and New Zealand, it needs to be acquired by distributors in those territories.
This is a film that needs to be seen in a cinema, and so a fundamental requirement with buyers is that the film must have a guaranteed theatrical release.
We are in no rush to have this film go out on a streaming platform.
We’re looking for distributors who will handle the film with the care, skill and commitment that Marc Wooldridge and his team at Maslow Entertainment have brought to their release in Australia and New Zealand.
Our strategy?
Simon Crowe, our foreign sales agent based in the UK, screened the film at the recent Cannes Film Festival in the Marché. Already he’s had offers.
The outstanding success of the film in Australia and New Zealand ($1m+ in the first two weeks) has caught the attention of foreign buyers. So we’ll wait and see.
Don’t sit at home thinking that it’s going to come to Netflix or another streamer anytime soon.
That’s not going to happen.
If you want to see the film, go to a cinema. That’s where this film should be seen – shot in wide-screen format and with an exceptional soundtrack, it really is a big screen experience.
And the Camino – the star of the movie – really needs to be experienced in its full glory.
It’s very pleasing that a lot of people are turning up to see The Way, My Way. In a few days we’ll be at $1m in box office returns.
Reviews are coming out, mainly positive, and I’m being contacted by friends saying: Oh you must be so thrilled etc.
I’m not. Nor is Jennifer. We’re rock steady.
Over a forty year period we’ve made films that have gone nowhere, and we’ve made films that have made a dent. I’ve ceased to predict how a movie we’ve made will work. I’ve been surprised at those that have connected with an audience, and shattered at those that haven’t.
I don’t read reviews anymore. Or listen or watch them if they’re on radio/podcasts/YouTube/whatever…
It doesn’t matter to me what a reviewer thinks. I’m only interested in what the audience thinks. They’re who I made the film for – not critics.
I see younger actors get peeved that a critic said this or didn’t say that. It doesn’t matter didly squat. The only thing that matters is the work. The views of a critic are meaningless and transitory. What lasts is the work. And that’s where the focus needs to be. Solely on the work.
Right at the outset, when we had our first conversation with our distributor Marc Wooldridge, head of Maslow Entertainment, after Marc had seen the movie, he asked me: What would success look like for you with this film?
I said to Marc: Success is here right now. We’ve made the film. That’s success.
Sometime in the next week, the film will cross the $1m mark.
I asked veteran screen pundit Paul Brennan why it’s doing so well – and I posted his response earlier. But there’s another reason –
We have a very smart, very committed distributor in Marc Wooldridge and his team at Maslow Entertainment.
Marc and his partner Karen saw an advanced cut of the film. They liked it but they had a few quibbles. Jennifer and I fixed those quibbles. Immediately the film played better.
Seen the trailer? If you haven’t, here it is. This is Marc’s work –
Marc has approached the distribution and marketing of this film with passion and full commitment. He’s discovered the whole world of the Camino, a world that initially he knew nothing about – but he very quickly immersed himself in it.
It was always our strategy to ensure that the film worked for the core Camino audience, and then hope that word of mouth would bring non-pilgrims to the cinema.
To that end, Marc sought the support of The Australian Friends of the Camino and Janet Leitch, who swung her endorsement behind the film. Similarly, Marc bought Camino legend Johnnie Walker out from Santiago in Spain to do advance Q&A screenings here in Australia.
John’s unwavering support has been crucial in this film’s success as well.
Jennifer and I are very fortunate that the film landed in Marc’s hands. Just as we have handcrafted this movie, Marc and his team have handcrafted the distribution and marketing.
We’ve brought Marc on as an Executive Producer and in that capacity he will work with Simon Crowe, our foreign sales agent based in the UK, to oversee the international rollout. And if the response overseas is anything like it is in Australia, we have exciting times ahead of us.
By the end of the first week up to Friday 24th, The Way, My Way had a box office gross of nearly $750,000 – from Australia and New Zealand.
That’s phenomenal.
I asked Paul Brennan, highly respected film industry veteran on the exhibition side of things, why is it working so well. Here’s what he wrote back:
THE WAY MY WAY is one of those rare events in screen success in that the feature is appealing to enthusiastic baby boomer audiences who still like to attend the cinema as well as the cinema owners and programmers who delight in screening to crowded sessions, especially Sunday to Friday in what would normally be considered off peak times.
Seeing THE WAY MY WAY is an elating passive emotional cinema experience which celebrates the humorous human condition for educated adults still wishing to be included in social life. It is also an inspiring sports film…it might be walking and learning and feeling, and that experience for mature adults is a valid part of their healthy lives.
THE WAY MY WAY validates how older people still see themselves, and especially the ache and repair of relationships. Even with their own body. By experiencing the journey as a screen vision, it certainly uplifts the viewer to participate in nature, effort and emotion to the point of heartfelt release by the 100th minute.
Few films pass from maker to viewer with enthusiastic intergenerational audience result. Anyone from 25 to 85 can see themselves on screen, and often wish parents and relatives to reconnect. The word of mouth, essential for return visits and good conversation is a solid strike rate. Many viewers return, bringing neighbours and family with them. And on attendance multiplies.
While mainstream blockbusters and exhausting cinema crowds dominate evenings and Saturdays, THE WAY MY WAY is the humble blockbuster providing profitable sessions at the counterbalance times of matinees and weekdays, a schedule which sees both ticket-buyer and cinema owner delighted at the access and the experience.
THE WAY MY WAY is not competing with any movie in the market; it is the competition itself in a parallel orbit. And everyone is happy. Hiking businesses would cheer and promote both the topic and the supply materials as working examples of their business aesthetic.
Similar rare unique release titles would be AS IT IS IN HEAVEN and THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN.
Today Jennifer and I head back home, after six weeks on the road traveling around the country, and going to Croatia, to promote our film, The Way, My Way.
The first several weeks were with the legendary Johnnie Walker, and that was a very special time for Jennifer and me. There is absolutely no doubt that his presence at all those screenings, including the one in Croatia, has contributed materially to the success of this film.
So many of these screenings were sellouts. The response has been somewhat overwhelming.
Thanks to distributor Marc Wooldridge and his team at Maslow Entertainment for handling the film with such skill and hands-on care.
And thanks to you too – all those who have supported the film, and Jennifer and myself. We are both deeply appreciative.
We need that support to continue though. The film has only been in general release for four days. We want this film to have a long life, so please – those of you who are supporting the film – please continue to do what you’re doing.
We are hoping that out of the screening at the Cannes Film Festival that we’ll be soon bringing distributors from other territories on board swiftly. It would be great to have this film in cinemas around the world later this year.
In the meantime, this morning we drive back home to Mudgee to slip back into our routine – the lawn will need mowing, we’ll have to put electric blankets on the beds, that sort of thing.
This last six weeks has been a blast. We’ve met so many wonderful people. We’ve made many new friends, we’ve renewed old friendships.
Yes, it’s been exhausting at times, and the schedule was unrelenting, but man o man, did Jen and I have fun!
PGS - The Way 
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