Summer 2007

Granddaddy of Fan Films

Chris Strompolos ’93

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Chris Strompolos (second from right) is pictured with Steven Spielberg (second from left).

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Everybody loves it, and the big question is—why? The hero is a leather-jacketed, whip- and wise-cracking archaeologist seeking the Holy Grail. You know who it is, of course. Indiana Jones, that delicious hero, concocted in 1981 by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. But wait just a darned minute! Indiana is not the suave Harrison Ford, but a chubby 11-year old named Chris Strompolos?!

Let’s go back to the beginning. In the summer of 1982, three friends from Biloxi, Mississippi, begin a shot-for-shot remake of their favorite movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Seven years later, they finish it, and it is a perfect replica. Everything is there: The rolling boulder, the live snakes, exploding fire— 649 shots, to be exact.

The Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation debuted in 2003 at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas, after the Alamo’s director discovered the movie through a fellow tape swapper. And then came the accolades. The Austin Chronicle called it, “Nothing short of stunning.” Jim Windolf, of Vanity Fair, concluded, “We have been so entertained for so long that we have, in a way, reached the end of entertainment. An audience jaded by one mega-budget blockbuster after another is all too ready for an action movie made with love instead of money and is all too willing to look past technical flaws for a film that shows real heart. Here’s the catch, though: nobody would be able to sit still for Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation if this movie, amateur or not, weren’t well crafted.”

It has been featured by dozens of major media, including NPR, Rolling Stone and Wired magazines, CNN, “Good Morning America,” and the “Craig Kilborn Show.” And everybody loves it, including Steven Spielberg, who dropped the movie’s creators a note: “Wanted to write and let you know how impressed I was with your very loving and detailed tribute to our Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Says Strompolos, “A British reviewer called us, ‘The granddaddies of the fan film.’ That’s cool; I’ll take the title.We were some of the first to do a fan film that emulated the original to this extent.”

There’s no question that the film changed his life. Strompolos used scenes from the movie to help convince Wooster administrators to admit him, and when he arrived on campus immediately declared his major. His impression that Wooster would be a place where you could “start practicing your craft right from the get-go,” was true. He wrote his Independent Study on Anthony and Cleopatra and played the role of Anthony in a lavish production.

Today, Strompolos owns a Mississippi-based production company called Rolling Boulder with childhood friend Eric Zola. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is securing funding for a movie about a young man who travels up the Mississippi River, in search of his father. “I have no doubt that the movie will be a reality,” he says. “Once we get fixed on something, there’s no stopping us. If we could get the money by 2009, it sure would be swell.”

In the meantime, the story of the three boys and their film is itself being made into a movie. Rights to the story have been sold to Paramount, with Scott Rudin (producer of The Hours and School of Rock) at the helm.

But back to the question: Why do people love this movie? Some reviewers think it’s because people like trying to guess how the kids are going to pull off the next big scene. Some think it’s because the film allows audiences to watch a Mississippian Indiana Jones grow up on camera, from a chubby-cheeked little kid to an adolescent, who experiences his first kiss as Indy.

Here’s what Strompolos believes: “Anybody growing up in the ’80s remembers the mythology of Spielberg and Lucas. It’s as if anything was possible.Our movie taps into an innocent time, a time of growing up, of doing it yourself. It captures the raw spirit of filmmaking.”