Long-time friends of the Festival, Monica Lund, Marian Yeager, and Paul Merryman are excited to announce the distribution of their film Match Me If You Can through Vertical Entertainment. Written by Betsy Morris, Match Me If You Can was AFF’s 2008 Comedy Screenplay winner (then titled eLove), and is the story of a computer nerd, who is rejected by an online dating service and dubbed “unmatchable,” she goes viral by declaring war on the dating service and becoming a reluctant champion for frustrated singles everywhere. Find out more below about how the Austin Film Festival brought together the creators of this fabulous film, now streaming on most streaming platforms including AppleTV+ and Amazon Prime.
How AFF connected us: A Letter to AFF by Monica Lund
I had been a reader with AFF since 1999. Marian and I, and her sister Elizabeth, met at a reader party in 2003. Marian met our editor, Frank Reynolds (an AFF panelist), and our composer, Brian Satterwhite, at AFF. We had a producer drop out about 5 weeks before production on Match was to start, and a day or two after they dropped out, I met Paul Merryman at a Film & Food committee meeting. He became our UPM and an EP, and was instrumental in Match getting made.
Match Me If You Can, written by Betsy Morris (bio below), was the comedy winner in 2008 when it was titled eLove. Betsy and I befriended each other at the Awards Luncheon, and we’ve been friends and collaborators ever since. eLove was also one of those “No” scripts that I turned over to a “Yes.” Then, at a reader party, when AFF was on W 5th Street, an elderly-ish man was going to pick it up from the “Yes” pile until I told him it was a rom-com. He thanked me as he put it back in the “yes” pile. It then went on to win the Comedy category.
Years passed, and Marian and I were looking for scripts for a slate. I thought of eLove, reached out to Betsy and it had just dropped out of option. We read it, loved it, optioned it (this took a while), and started the rewrites and casting and everything that goes with getting the script to screen. Fast forward through the many challenges we faced, from financing to COVID, and here we are with distribution through Vertical Entertainment in US, Canada, UK/Ireland, certain Carribbean nations and several other areas. We had one week in theaters, with a digital/On-Demand same day release. We’re on most platforms: iTunes, Prime, Vudu (Fandango), Redbox, Spectrum/Time Warner, UVerse, Comcast, Satellite, and many others including smaller regional platforms.
Links:
iTunes: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/match-me-if-you-can/umc.cmc.44xeabos42ls510ebcu8ypu1o
Prime: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0B8QZ7NT4/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
About Betsy, in her own words:
Betsy Morris is a Philly girl now living and writing in the San Diego sun with her family and her unnecessarily judgmental cats. Betsy likes to write female-driven stories, and most of her scripts include comedy and romance—even when the project doesn’t really require either. She’s also quite fond of blowing shit up.
She has written a number of features (TEN INCH HERO, LAST CALL AT MURRAY’S) as well as quite a few TV projects (SNOWCOMING, A KISMET CHRISTMAS, THE WEDDING VEIL INSPIRATION). Her latest projects are the upcoming indie feature MATCH ME IF YOU CAN and Hallmark’s GUIDING EMILY. Betsy once won Austin Film Festival’s top Comedy award, and at any given time is happily juggling a million different projects. Betsy also speaks fluent sarcasm and can turn anything into a bulleted list.