The little Jeep that couldn't
A local studio's 'Tugger' film stalls, triggering lawsuits that say investors, contractors and ex-employees were not paid.
Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 3, 2006
This is the story about the little Jeep that dreamed, an Orlando animator who dreamed him up, an industry that's all about dreams, a local studio that sold them -- and the nightmares that now haunt them all.
Tugger is a children's 3-D animated movie, conceived and created in Central Florida by Genesis Orlando, a small, independent studio in Celebration. It's the story of a World War II Jeep that spends the postwar years at a small airport, dreaming of flying. It played only a few days in a small number of theaters in 2005, then vanished.
At best, Tugger offers a cautionary tale about the difficulties, rewards and risks of independent studios where many Orlando-based filmmakers turned when Walt Disney Co. shut down its Central Florida operations in 2004.
Tugger's production and failed distribution efforts to date created a trail of angry investors, contractors and ex-employees who say they didn't get paid. There are now eight lawsuits against Genesis or its founder, Jeffrey J. Varab, including a move by 11 investors last month to have the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Orlando declare an involuntary bankruptcy of the company and wrestle away its assets -- notably Tugger.
In legal briefs answering the lawsuits in state circuit courts in Orlando and Kissimmee, Varab has denied all wrongdoing.
Varab, 51, of Celebration, spoke only briefly to the Orlando Sentinel for this article. In an e-mail to the Sentinel, he wrote, "Obviously, there are those who share our frustration and I respect their need to express their view points. But we have just begun to defend arguments."
In the federal case, Genesis is trying to decide whether to fight the involuntary bankruptcy or ask the court to allow the company to reorganize and try again to market Tugger. Genesis' bankruptcy attorney, R. Scott Shuker, said the company owes about $2 million to creditors, and it's just a matter of finding a way to make some money so they can get paid.
But some people who worked at or financed Genesis told the Sentinel they don't trust Varab anymore and have no hope he would make money with the film.
"It's a case of no integrity," said Beryl "Woody" Woodman, a writer, animator and director who filed a lawsuit in state Circuit Court in Orange County claiming that he created the main characters and story that were the basis for the movie and was defrauded by Varab.
Shuker dismissed the bitter talk and legal claims from Genesis' critics as common reactions among creditors in business deals that wind up in bankruptcy court and insisted many other creditors are satisfied. He said Genesis is negotiating, with distributors he was not at liberty to name, for a new U.S. theatrical release around Christmas, and separate releases in Canada and South Africa.Woodman and the other former Genesis employees and investors who spoke to the Sentinel all said they have heard Varab say that too many times before: There were always distribution deals in the works, but nothing major ever materialized. Nor did the money.
Meanwhile, Tugger: The Jeep 4x4 Who Wanted To Fly may be like an uncashed, scratch-off lottery ticket that could be worth millions, "but you haven't scratched it yet to see what it's worth," said former Genesis Chief Operating Officer Alan Guimond, 60, of Alexandria, Va., one of the bankruptcy petitioners.
It's not just that movie. From the start, Genesis planned and promoted a whole series of Tugger movies. There were to be Tugger toys and Tugger children's books.
"Tugger was my baby," Woodman said.
Woodman also joined the bankruptcy petition. In his state suit, Woodman claimed Varab fraudulently obtained copyrights for Woodman's movie characters behind his back, then further defrauded him with a series of contracts that Woodman charges Varab never intended to honor. Woodman also claimed he never got paid, never got the screen credits on Tugger that his contracts required and lost control of his own characters.
Most of the other state suits, filed in Osceola and Orange counties, claim breach of contracts, charging that various employees, contractors and investors never got paid.
Now, Woodman said everyone's dream of making a hit independent film franchise is in tatters. "Everybody's. In fact, even Jeffrey's. He's turned this into a red-tape nightmare," Woodman said.
Optimism at the outset
Woodman grew up in rural Michigan. After high school, he joined the Marines, served in the Gulf War and went to community college. Then he pursued his dream of becoming an animation artist by heading to the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota.
It worked. In 1997, Disney hired him, starting on Mulan, a 1998 movie about a Chinese maiden who becomes a warrior hero.
By the early 2000s, word was getting around that Disney might close its Florida studios, and Woodman was mulling his options. He had written a story about a Jeep named Willy and its life after World War II, inspired by the old all-purpose vehicle his grandparents had on their farm.
He had met Varab while the two worked together on Mulan, and one day he showed him the story. They decided to make their own movie, under Varab's start-up studio. They also brought in a similar story from another writer about a tractor named Tugger that wanted to fly. They merged the stories, and Tugger was rolling.
In March 2003, Genesis Orlando was incorporated, with a studio in Varab's Celebration town house. Soon, Woodman said, a dozen people worked there, many fresh out of schools such as Full Sail.
Varab has been in the animation business for decades, going back to 1977's Pete's Dragon, a children's movie that included animation. He worked at several studios and rose in prominence, while animating such films as The Fox and the Hound, FernGully, Balto, Casper and Mulan. At Genesis he frequently talked about his times with animation legends: Steven Spielberg, John Lasseter, Don Bluth, Tim Burton.
Several ex-employees, including technical director Heath Hollingshead, 30, of Clermont, sound editor Jonathan Lewis, 26, of Winter Park, and art director Robert Kaczmarczyk, 28, of Celebration, said for a while it seemed like a dream to work with such an impressive pro as Varab.
Genesis' cash came sporadically, mostly from investors, much of it as loans secured with promissory notes for stock, ex-employees and investors said. Workers saw paychecks irregularly, sometimes going several weeks with only promises. A few eventually got back pay. But Woodman and others said most never did get back pay and quit still owed thousands of dollars apiece.
"They gave their nest eggs and lost," said Woodman, who stated in his suit that he is owed $94,000. "I gave everything I had and lost."
For more seasoned employees, such as Kathy O'Neal, 51, Genesis' chief financial officer for much of 2003 and 2004 before quitting and suing for back pay, expected business deals were what kept them going.
Staff members said Varab told them that he had a deal for DaimlerChrysler to buy 250,000 Tugger DVDs, to give one away with every new Grand Cherokee. He also announced, in a July 2004 press release, a theatrical and DVD distribution deal with 20th Century Fox.
It turned out, Chrysler never contracted to buy DVDs, a Chrysler official said. When Fox learned that in mid-2004, it canceled plans to work with Genesis because the Fox deal had been dependent on revenue coming from Chrysler, former chief operating officer Guimond said. Chrysler never did buy any DVDs.
"That company had the story and the talent, artistically, to make it big," O'Neal said. "That company came very, very close to having it all."
The investors ranged from friends and relatives of Genesis staff, some of whom invested $10,000 or more, to doctors, pastors and businessmen, such as Kermit Weeks, 53, owner of the Fantasy of Flight attraction in Polk City. Weeks lent Genesis $120,000, and at one time discussed putting in $2 million in exchange for stock.
Weeks said he learned employees and investors were having trouble getting money and backed out. He never got repaid and sued, alleging breach of contract and fraud.
"As we began to find out that things weren't . . . what we believed them to be, we started pulling our chips in," Weeks said. "I wish we hadn't gotten involved as deeply as we had."
Genesis never issued stock.
Problems worsen
Varab told the Sentinel that Tugger cost $2.4 million to make. However, Iake Eissinmann, who took over much of production in 2005, insisted the total likely is closer to $6 million. Still, even the higher estimate is a fraction of the usual cost of such movies.
Until recently, 3-D animated features were the exclusive domain of the "big three": Disney-Pixar, Fox-Blue Sky Studios and DreamWorks Animation, which each could spend more than $75 million per film.
But with the arrival in the early 2000s of inexpensive 3-D animation software and an influx of hungry artists trained to use it, the field opened rapidly to upstarts. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the first eye-catching, independent 3-D hit was Hoodwinked, which cost the Kanbar Animation Studios $15 million to $20 million and grossed $70 million last year.
Such success can inspire the great American dream: Get rich quick.
Work continued on Tugger. The story was completed. Jim Belushi, star of the ABC sitcom According to Jim, voiced the lead character, Tugger. Carrot Top, the Winter Park comedian, voiced Tugger's sidekick, Shorty. Music was recorded. The artists produced all the rough footage.
In early 2005, Genesis hired Eissinmann, 44, of Celebration, to oversee final production, mostly through subcontractors, and his wife, Alex Eissinmann, 40, to produce a gala premiere in Celebration.
Possible deals besides Chrysler and Fox continued to come and go. At various times, Varab touted pending deals with Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Porchlight Entertainment and others, Iake Eissinmann and other former Genesis officials recalled. But, Eissinmann said, "they all vaporized."
In a May 20, 2005, letter to investors, Varab wrote that Tugger would be in theaters all summer, then move quickly to DVD sales and international releases. The letter said Paramount Home Entertainment "will be responsible for the worldwide home entertainment release," and that both Chrysler and Shell Oil would also market the movie.
"I'm please [sic] to announce that we have secured distribution rights in the Peoples Republic of China, a country with a population exceeding one billion," Varab wrote. "Currently, the foreign-language versions of the film are nearing completion and international screenings and marketing programs are in the planning process."
The Eissinmanns said they kept faith because, while the company was short on cash, it had a real movie and appeared to have deals with real distributors, so money surely would follow. But now they said they are owed thousands of dollars in back pay, and $178,000 in short-term loans they made. They joined the involuntary bankruptcy petition filed Aug. 16.
"I believe I was misled, because nothing happened," Iake Eissinmann said.
Short-lived opening
As the July 2, 2005, premiere approached, new crises emerged. Gala participants, including Belushi's management, demanded payment in advance, but Genesis didn't have any cash or credit, Alex Eissinmann said. She said she was "assured" that if she reserved Belushi's private plane on her personal credit card, Genesis would pay it before the charge showed up.
So she put the $18,000 on her MasterCard. It was never reimbursed, she said.
Then, two days before the premiere, she said, Varab called her in a panic from Los Angeles. He was there to pick up the movie prints. But the processing company wanted $60,000 -- within the hour, he told her -- or it would not release the reels, she said.
"I said I would float the money, but it's got to be a . . . loan," she said she told Varab. " 'Absolutely. No problem,' he said. I wired the money."
That, too, has not been repaid, she said.
"The way Iake and I looked at it, we were in so far. If we didn't help fund the film, there's no way anybody would get their money," she said.
The nearly daylong premiere gala went off without a hitch, Alex Eissinmann said -- not counting two contractors that later sued Genesis claiming they weren't paid.
In July 2005, Tugger opened in a few Carmike theaters nationwide, including one in east Orange County. Genesis' faithful were sure it was a modest start to something big.
Few critics reviewed the movie. The Sentinel's Roger Moore gave it two stars out of five, calling it cute but reporting it "never takes flight." The weekly Asheville, N.C., Mountain Xpress gave it three stars, calling it boring but with a delightful, crisp and clever visual style.
The movie closed a few days later. Varab later stated, in a letter to Woodman's attorney, that it never really opened; that Tugger was only test-screened, then pulled. Either way, it all but disappeared (its DVD is available over the independent Web site allthingsjeep.com). Two liens have been filed on it: by the Screen Actors Guild and by one of the law firms defending Genesis.
One movie line now makes Alex Eissinmann and a few other former Genesis employees squirm. Early in the story, the character Ma the gas pump considers Tugger to be a young fool. After hearing his dream to fly, Ma declares, "Dreams can be powerful things -- especially when they get in the way of common sense."
Roger Moore, Katy Moore and Susan K. Thompson of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Scott Powers can be reached at spowers@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5441.
A local studio's 'Tugger' film stalls, triggering lawsuits that say investors, contractors and ex-employees were not paid.
Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 3, 2006
This is the story about the little Jeep that dreamed, an Orlando animator who dreamed him up, an industry that's all about dreams, a local studio that sold them -- and the nightmares that now haunt them all.
Tugger is a children's 3-D animated movie, conceived and created in Central Florida by Genesis Orlando, a small, independent studio in Celebration. It's the story of a World War II Jeep that spends the postwar years at a small airport, dreaming of flying. It played only a few days in a small number of theaters in 2005, then vanished.
At best, Tugger offers a cautionary tale about the difficulties, rewards and risks of independent studios where many Orlando-based filmmakers turned when Walt Disney Co. shut down its Central Florida operations in 2004.
Tugger's production and failed distribution efforts to date created a trail of angry investors, contractors and ex-employees who say they didn't get paid. There are now eight lawsuits against Genesis or its founder, Jeffrey J. Varab, including a move by 11 investors last month to have the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Orlando declare an involuntary bankruptcy of the company and wrestle away its assets -- notably Tugger.
In legal briefs answering the lawsuits in state circuit courts in Orlando and Kissimmee, Varab has denied all wrongdoing.
Varab, 51, of Celebration, spoke only briefly to the Orlando Sentinel for this article. In an e-mail to the Sentinel, he wrote, "Obviously, there are those who share our frustration and I respect their need to express their view points. But we have just begun to defend arguments."
In the federal case, Genesis is trying to decide whether to fight the involuntary bankruptcy or ask the court to allow the company to reorganize and try again to market Tugger. Genesis' bankruptcy attorney, R. Scott Shuker, said the company owes about $2 million to creditors, and it's just a matter of finding a way to make some money so they can get paid.
But some people who worked at or financed Genesis told the Sentinel they don't trust Varab anymore and have no hope he would make money with the film.
"It's a case of no integrity," said Beryl "Woody" Woodman, a writer, animator and director who filed a lawsuit in state Circuit Court in Orange County claiming that he created the main characters and story that were the basis for the movie and was defrauded by Varab.
Shuker dismissed the bitter talk and legal claims from Genesis' critics as common reactions among creditors in business deals that wind up in bankruptcy court and insisted many other creditors are satisfied. He said Genesis is negotiating, with distributors he was not at liberty to name, for a new U.S. theatrical release around Christmas, and separate releases in Canada and South Africa.Woodman and the other former Genesis employees and investors who spoke to the Sentinel all said they have heard Varab say that too many times before: There were always distribution deals in the works, but nothing major ever materialized. Nor did the money.
Meanwhile, Tugger: The Jeep 4x4 Who Wanted To Fly may be like an uncashed, scratch-off lottery ticket that could be worth millions, "but you haven't scratched it yet to see what it's worth," said former Genesis Chief Operating Officer Alan Guimond, 60, of Alexandria, Va., one of the bankruptcy petitioners.
It's not just that movie. From the start, Genesis planned and promoted a whole series of Tugger movies. There were to be Tugger toys and Tugger children's books.
"Tugger was my baby," Woodman said.
Woodman also joined the bankruptcy petition. In his state suit, Woodman claimed Varab fraudulently obtained copyrights for Woodman's movie characters behind his back, then further defrauded him with a series of contracts that Woodman charges Varab never intended to honor. Woodman also claimed he never got paid, never got the screen credits on Tugger that his contracts required and lost control of his own characters.
Most of the other state suits, filed in Osceola and Orange counties, claim breach of contracts, charging that various employees, contractors and investors never got paid.
Now, Woodman said everyone's dream of making a hit independent film franchise is in tatters. "Everybody's. In fact, even Jeffrey's. He's turned this into a red-tape nightmare," Woodman said.
Optimism at the outset
Woodman grew up in rural Michigan. After high school, he joined the Marines, served in the Gulf War and went to community college. Then he pursued his dream of becoming an animation artist by heading to the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota.
It worked. In 1997, Disney hired him, starting on Mulan, a 1998 movie about a Chinese maiden who becomes a warrior hero.
By the early 2000s, word was getting around that Disney might close its Florida studios, and Woodman was mulling his options. He had written a story about a Jeep named Willy and its life after World War II, inspired by the old all-purpose vehicle his grandparents had on their farm.
He had met Varab while the two worked together on Mulan, and one day he showed him the story. They decided to make their own movie, under Varab's start-up studio. They also brought in a similar story from another writer about a tractor named Tugger that wanted to fly. They merged the stories, and Tugger was rolling.
In March 2003, Genesis Orlando was incorporated, with a studio in Varab's Celebration town house. Soon, Woodman said, a dozen people worked there, many fresh out of schools such as Full Sail.
Varab has been in the animation business for decades, going back to 1977's Pete's Dragon, a children's movie that included animation. He worked at several studios and rose in prominence, while animating such films as The Fox and the Hound, FernGully, Balto, Casper and Mulan. At Genesis he frequently talked about his times with animation legends: Steven Spielberg, John Lasseter, Don Bluth, Tim Burton.
Several ex-employees, including technical director Heath Hollingshead, 30, of Clermont, sound editor Jonathan Lewis, 26, of Winter Park, and art director Robert Kaczmarczyk, 28, of Celebration, said for a while it seemed like a dream to work with such an impressive pro as Varab.
Genesis' cash came sporadically, mostly from investors, much of it as loans secured with promissory notes for stock, ex-employees and investors said. Workers saw paychecks irregularly, sometimes going several weeks with only promises. A few eventually got back pay. But Woodman and others said most never did get back pay and quit still owed thousands of dollars apiece.
"They gave their nest eggs and lost," said Woodman, who stated in his suit that he is owed $94,000. "I gave everything I had and lost."
For more seasoned employees, such as Kathy O'Neal, 51, Genesis' chief financial officer for much of 2003 and 2004 before quitting and suing for back pay, expected business deals were what kept them going.
Staff members said Varab told them that he had a deal for DaimlerChrysler to buy 250,000 Tugger DVDs, to give one away with every new Grand Cherokee. He also announced, in a July 2004 press release, a theatrical and DVD distribution deal with 20th Century Fox.
It turned out, Chrysler never contracted to buy DVDs, a Chrysler official said. When Fox learned that in mid-2004, it canceled plans to work with Genesis because the Fox deal had been dependent on revenue coming from Chrysler, former chief operating officer Guimond said. Chrysler never did buy any DVDs.
"That company had the story and the talent, artistically, to make it big," O'Neal said. "That company came very, very close to having it all."
The investors ranged from friends and relatives of Genesis staff, some of whom invested $10,000 or more, to doctors, pastors and businessmen, such as Kermit Weeks, 53, owner of the Fantasy of Flight attraction in Polk City. Weeks lent Genesis $120,000, and at one time discussed putting in $2 million in exchange for stock.
Weeks said he learned employees and investors were having trouble getting money and backed out. He never got repaid and sued, alleging breach of contract and fraud.
"As we began to find out that things weren't . . . what we believed them to be, we started pulling our chips in," Weeks said. "I wish we hadn't gotten involved as deeply as we had."
Genesis never issued stock.
Problems worsen
Varab told the Sentinel that Tugger cost $2.4 million to make. However, Iake Eissinmann, who took over much of production in 2005, insisted the total likely is closer to $6 million. Still, even the higher estimate is a fraction of the usual cost of such movies.
Until recently, 3-D animated features were the exclusive domain of the "big three": Disney-Pixar, Fox-Blue Sky Studios and DreamWorks Animation, which each could spend more than $75 million per film.
But with the arrival in the early 2000s of inexpensive 3-D animation software and an influx of hungry artists trained to use it, the field opened rapidly to upstarts. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the first eye-catching, independent 3-D hit was Hoodwinked, which cost the Kanbar Animation Studios $15 million to $20 million and grossed $70 million last year.
Such success can inspire the great American dream: Get rich quick.
Work continued on Tugger. The story was completed. Jim Belushi, star of the ABC sitcom According to Jim, voiced the lead character, Tugger. Carrot Top, the Winter Park comedian, voiced Tugger's sidekick, Shorty. Music was recorded. The artists produced all the rough footage.
In early 2005, Genesis hired Eissinmann, 44, of Celebration, to oversee final production, mostly through subcontractors, and his wife, Alex Eissinmann, 40, to produce a gala premiere in Celebration.
Possible deals besides Chrysler and Fox continued to come and go. At various times, Varab touted pending deals with Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Porchlight Entertainment and others, Iake Eissinmann and other former Genesis officials recalled. But, Eissinmann said, "they all vaporized."
In a May 20, 2005, letter to investors, Varab wrote that Tugger would be in theaters all summer, then move quickly to DVD sales and international releases. The letter said Paramount Home Entertainment "will be responsible for the worldwide home entertainment release," and that both Chrysler and Shell Oil would also market the movie.
"I'm please [sic] to announce that we have secured distribution rights in the Peoples Republic of China, a country with a population exceeding one billion," Varab wrote. "Currently, the foreign-language versions of the film are nearing completion and international screenings and marketing programs are in the planning process."
The Eissinmanns said they kept faith because, while the company was short on cash, it had a real movie and appeared to have deals with real distributors, so money surely would follow. But now they said they are owed thousands of dollars in back pay, and $178,000 in short-term loans they made. They joined the involuntary bankruptcy petition filed Aug. 16.
"I believe I was misled, because nothing happened," Iake Eissinmann said.
Short-lived opening
As the July 2, 2005, premiere approached, new crises emerged. Gala participants, including Belushi's management, demanded payment in advance, but Genesis didn't have any cash or credit, Alex Eissinmann said. She said she was "assured" that if she reserved Belushi's private plane on her personal credit card, Genesis would pay it before the charge showed up.
So she put the $18,000 on her MasterCard. It was never reimbursed, she said.
Then, two days before the premiere, she said, Varab called her in a panic from Los Angeles. He was there to pick up the movie prints. But the processing company wanted $60,000 -- within the hour, he told her -- or it would not release the reels, she said.
"I said I would float the money, but it's got to be a . . . loan," she said she told Varab. " 'Absolutely. No problem,' he said. I wired the money."
That, too, has not been repaid, she said.
"The way Iake and I looked at it, we were in so far. If we didn't help fund the film, there's no way anybody would get their money," she said.
The nearly daylong premiere gala went off without a hitch, Alex Eissinmann said -- not counting two contractors that later sued Genesis claiming they weren't paid.
In July 2005, Tugger opened in a few Carmike theaters nationwide, including one in east Orange County. Genesis' faithful were sure it was a modest start to something big.
Few critics reviewed the movie. The Sentinel's Roger Moore gave it two stars out of five, calling it cute but reporting it "never takes flight." The weekly Asheville, N.C., Mountain Xpress gave it three stars, calling it boring but with a delightful, crisp and clever visual style.
The movie closed a few days later. Varab later stated, in a letter to Woodman's attorney, that it never really opened; that Tugger was only test-screened, then pulled. Either way, it all but disappeared (its DVD is available over the independent Web site allthingsjeep.com). Two liens have been filed on it: by the Screen Actors Guild and by one of the law firms defending Genesis.
One movie line now makes Alex Eissinmann and a few other former Genesis employees squirm. Early in the story, the character Ma the gas pump considers Tugger to be a young fool. After hearing his dream to fly, Ma declares, "Dreams can be powerful things -- especially when they get in the way of common sense."
Roger Moore, Katy Moore and Susan K. Thompson of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Scott Powers can be reached at spowers@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5441.
