Comedy Garbage: The Movie

***Comedy Garbage: The Movie*** (also known as ***The Quest for the Sandwich of Azaroft**)* is a 2028 American independent science fiction adventure comedy fantasy film written and directed by Nicolas AVO and Edward Rodriguez (in their feature directional debut). It is based on the web series of the same name, also created by AVO, with himself as the lead character. A movie adaptation of the series began development in 2023, but the project languished in development hell [1]until 2025 when Paramount green-lit the production.

The story centers around a fictional urban legend about a mythical sandwich that killed many people in 1982. After a long refusal to address the legend by his peers, Jake succumbs to pressure by his brother and his friends to find the sandwich, and embarks on a quest to prove that there is nothing inside the Mountain. However, the crew is pursued by federal authorities. Led by the villainous General Winston Margolis, who believes is investigating government secrets. The film was written by AVO and Rodriguez when they were in middle school, the same time the original series was first released. The film was re-written several times until the duo reached a satisfying narrative that fans of the series would love. Production was underway by June 2025, and was released the following year.

The film premiered on June 29, 2028 at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. And released in the United States on June 30. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the cinematography, performances, emotional weight and the climactic fighter jet sequence, but criticized the complex plot, dark and frightening tone and visual effects, however, it was received very positively by audiences. It grossed $357.5 Million on a $19 Million budget, becoming one of the highest grossing independent films ever made.

## Plot

In 1982, a respect private scientific research corporation named B-Science is appointed to investigate an entrance formed in Mount Rainier after an earthquake strikes the west coast of the United States, however, the crew sent to investigate is caved in and end up passing away due to dehydration and overheating. B-Science is sued for nearly $285 Million and declares bankruptcy in 1983. In the present day, enthusiastic and aspiring business woman Amber Neiman proposes to Seattle's Mayor to investigate the cave found in the mountain with safer equipment, however, the Mayor turns her down.

Jake, and his brother Jim go about their daily routine. Jake has lost courage and confidence over the years, his life has become miserable, he works for a selfish boss who treats them like slaves in a low income job that barely makes ends meet. Jim and their friend Dainslief tell Jake about the Sandwich of Azaroft legend, which grants five wishes if discovered. As a personal thought, Jake decides to embark on a quest to Mount Rainier to debunk the myth all out of selfishness followed by Amber, Dainslief and Jim.

While filming their expedition, Jim and Jake debate over what the sandwich might include and what happens if someone eats it. Sargent Hartman and General Winston, thinking the squad is looking for government secrets, attempts to capture them. Winston accidentally blows a grenade, giving the squad enough time to escape. Jake, Jim, Dainslief and Amber search for their friend, Crazy Drunk Guy for answers. They stumble across a shack that turns out to be the home of Drunk Guy who tells them that any kind of damage to the sandwich could cause a world consuming explosion. Drunk Guy says to have joined the Seattle Government in 2005 and reveals that the project continued in secret in order to extract a sample, however, Drunk Guy refused to continue with the project which led to his resignation, however, he leaks private information about the government online, leading to his imprision and eventual escape. During the night, Hartman kidnaps Amber and holds her hostage.

Going back to the Drunk Guy's House, Jake and Jim discover a large storm forming around the peak of the mountain. Jake decides to go to the mountain to try to investigate the situation. General Winston catches up to the situation where Amber and Dainslief are reunited. The General completely looses his mind and launches a missile he had in his military base that strikes the mountain and everyone escapes before it absorbs the energy. Drunk Guy believes that the mountain could have absorbed the explosion but they are wrong, Winston had turned 50 feet tall and starts to storm all of Seattle, according to Drunk Guy, he had absorbed most of the energy of the explosion, and became powerful enough to destroy the world with just one strike of any antenna.

The group arrives at Jake's house to collect weapons to prepare for the apocalypse. But Winston spots them from afar and ambushes them with his hand and kidnaps everyone but Jake, who tries to get to Winston before he strikes the Seattle Space Needle to end the world. Jake seeks help from the mayor, who escorts him throughout the city and arrive at the space needle, Jake goes to the top as Winston starts to form the storm that could execute them. Jake tries to negotiate with Winston, while he's distracted, he tells his group to arm themselves up to start an ambush on Winston to win the battle.

They all start ambushing the General as he starts to unintentionally transfer more power to the antenna, Jake shoots the antenna with an RPG to finish off Winston and ends up in an explosion covering all of the area of the Space Needle. Back on the ground, Winston turned out to be powerful enough to just loose most of his power, and forces Jake into a pistol duel, Jake forgets every single one of his weapons, but a pedestrian tosses him his Glock while Winston egocentrically makes fun of Jake, who shoots him point blank. Jake then passes out due to an internal hemorrhage and is hospitalized, he is then sent to Washington, D.C. to receive the medal of honor by the president, who praises him for his selfless bravery. He then narrates how the lives of his friends changed because of their actions. He then goes to bed tired after a long but calm day.

## Cast

* Jake Keller
* Jim Keller
* Amber Neiman
* Dainslief Silverman
* Crazy Drunk Guy
* Winston Margolis
* Sofia Hartman
* Henry Bernie
* Seattle Mayor
* US President

## Production

### **Development**

In 2017, Nicolas AVO dismissed his friends about the notion about making a movie as "stupid", however, a cousin changed his mind and encouraged him to write a script for a movie, however, he refused to write the script by himself as he could receive feedback with another writer, he pitched the script to his friend Andres Vidal, however, they didn't have a narrative or a story, and would spend three years developing a story, in 2020, he began his first YouTube channel with the intent of creating short films and other works that required a narrative, with his ultimate goal being making a feature length film. The first concept was a movie where a group of college dropouts help a struggling rock club regain popularity, however, that idea became it's own feature film 20 years later. Following the November 2022 hack of Sky Theory Studios, Discord DMs between owner and CEO Nicolas AVO, then-chief creative officer Andres Vidal and writing staff leader Edward Rodriguez were released, revealing that Sky Theory Studios had been attempting to write a spec script for a feature film adaptation of Comedy Garbage. After the emails became public, AVO, Vidal and Rodriguez met in a Starbucks to discuss ideas for a potential plot for a movie. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was scrapped and was put on halt for the rest of the year. In February of 2022, AVO conceived the idea for a nostalgic web series that would have the same production quality as early videos from 2008-2009. In late March, AVO would later consider the idea of a movie for the series.

Development of the film adaptation for the series began in April of 2022, the same time Nicolas AVO, the series creator and showrunner conceived the idea for the show, and AVO would develop both projects simultaneously. An early concept for the film was that NASA was re-starting the Apollo Space Program, and that Jake, the main character of the series, found an old newspaper dating back to 1989, with the headline stating that a 13-year-old boy had snuck into a Saturn V rocket and flew to the moon, and Jake and his crew would try to find the same young astronaut across the United States in order to gather more information out of the astronaut. According to AVO, the film was supposedly going to be a "biopic that completely shelved the main characters of the series for the sakes of drama" but later the idea was scrapped as it seemed that it didn't honor the whole purpose of the series in the first place, which was to invoke nostalgic comedy. Another concept was to bring the Apollo Space Program to the present day and have Jake and his crew be the ones who landed on the moon and hijacked the Saturn V rocket. However, instead of this being a feature length film, it was downplayed to a TV special of 25 to 30 minutes.

In May of 2022, the idea was scrapped again and the project went into limbo in order for AVO to focus more on the series itself, in July, the project was revived and AVO began to write a script treatment for the film and changed the story from taking place in space to an entirely different mood, in this treatment, the film took place in a dystopian United States of America, where it was ruled by an evil empire that won a war against the USA, as the main characters of the show led a rebellion to regain their freedom. According to AVO, the script treatment was darker in tone and was intended to kill off one of the main characters by the end of the film, however, the idea was scrapped again as it was considered too expensive and it would have probably flopped at the box office. In December, a new treatment for a script was wrote down with the same story, with some changes in order to make it more financially accessible, however, after the script was finished, AVO presented it to his co-showrunner and writing staff leader Edward Rodriguez, who said the story was to similar to Half-Life 2 in terms of narrative, and that it would still be too expensive to "actually make." And the idea was scrapped once again, AVO apparently had a paper hung up in his room that counted the scraps of the story, which at this point were 6. AVO said that the most challenging part of making the film was establishing a satisfying narrative that fans of the series would love.

Once the Pilot episode was aired on the internet on February 6, 2023, rumors began to spread that there was a feature film adaptation of the series in early development, and the project was revived once again with a complete re-write of the story and a new outline in hand, AVO divided the outline into acts to further make the story more thorough, the outline was completed in February 15, 2023 and a new script began writing, during this process, he completely discounted all other drafts of the script and counted the current one as the first, he also wrote it with Comedy Garbage producers Edward Rodriguez and Liana Rodriguez. They interchanged ideas and divided themselves into roles, Edward Rodriguez would be the one who would write the comic situations, Liana Rodriguez would be in charge of the sluglines, inserts and scene headings, while AVO would be in charge of the dialogue between characters. The draft was finished on February 27, 2023. Though they considered it needed significant refinement. Edward Rodriguez stated that: "The draft was there, the story was there, everything was there, but something that always troubled us was the pacing of the script, it was too uneven, so I approached Nico and said to him: 'Dude, we need to make this flow smoothly, everyone is gonna rant at us for the stupidly long opening' He later said 'Don't worry, we will fix this."

In September 2023, a couple weeks after the first season of Comedy Garbage had concluded, the project was formally announced and confirmed on AVO's YouTube channel, after the announcement was well received, AVO and Rodriguez proceeded with the production of the film. And a new draft carrying the same story began writing, this time, the script was longer, more evenly paced and had a cleaner plot and the dialogue was better. In October of the same year, it was confirmed that AVO and Rodriguez would be in charge of writing and directing the film, while Liana Rodriguez would produce the film along with Andres Vidal, a close friend of AVO who helped develop the series. Due to the nostalgic nature of the series, it was decided that the film would imitate the production quality of 1980s feature films, in order to better replicate the vintage look, AVO looked up the screenplays to *Top Gun* (1986), *Back to the Future* (1985), *Ghostbusters* (1984) and *The Goonies* (1985) to further develop the script based on how those films were produced. Andres Vidal who had previously worked with AVO on their independent short film *The Potato Chip Shortage*, confirmed that he was working as head of story for the film.

### **Writing**

Rodriguez and AVO wanted the film to appeal to fans while still being fun for general audiences while still retaining most of what made the series unique. The duo studied and analyzed written dialogue in vintage films and wrote the dialogue in the film in the same general style of older films. During the writing of early drafts of the script, they realized absolutely no characters changed over the course of the script, Rodriguez said: "In the treatment where the main characters rebel against a corrupt government, that treatment was supposed to be a makeshift sequel to a previously established storyline in the series, but in the movie, not even Jake changed a little bit, maybe in the F-Bombs he dropped, but certainly not in personality." The duo wanted to give Jake a character arc where he gets over his biggest fears and grows as a person. they decided to settle on giving Jake a "coward to hero" arc. AVO said: "Though it was a generic character arc, we needed to test the waters and see where we could improve in future movies." AVO didn't want the film to be expected to be a masterpiece, but rather just a "simple, fun little movie that you could watch from time to time, or just a good movie."

The script was read by close friends and family members of the writers, many people liked the draft and praised it in it's simplicity, and said that that's where the charm lied. AVO wanted the film to have a proper theatrical release in the countries that mostly watched the series. Rodriguez said that they could have a limited release in theaters, gradually building their box office numbers by going from theater to theater screening the film, but AVO protested against this idea, as he said it would "become the longest theatrical release in the world." In October 10, 2023, the duo wrote another draft of the script Rodriguez followed, the duo then drove down to Los Angeles in December 2023 to pitch it to film studios to secure funding for the film. It was first presented to Universal Pictures, however, they rejected it, they went to Columbia Pictures who also rejected it. And they went to Paramount Pictures and pitched them the script, Brian Robbins, the CEO of Paramount was sold in 30 seconds and commissioned the screenplay, AVO asked Robbins to leave them with complete creative liberty to not alienate fans of the original series. Robbins reluctantly agreed.

AVO also said that the film would mock the visuals and sound of classic 80s movies, and the film would be less expensive, thus making a box office failure less of a financial punishment. On August 27, 2028, AVO confirmed on an Instagram Post that Paramount Pictures had given them the greenlight for production on the film, and also said that he would post regular updates on his YouTube channel about the film. AVO said that 2028 would be dedicated to casting the remaining roles for the film, storyboards and film poster art-work. Filming was scheduled for Late June 2025 to Mid August 2030, Rodriguez said that the film would have a possible December 2030 release, by March 2024, casting had finished and storyboarding began work. Though AVO wanted the film to have grainy footage, he figured shooting on actual film would be to difficult and would push back production by a great margin, however, after using a Super 35 camera, he changed his mind. Originally, the film was written to be Rated R, however, the script was re-written one more time to reduce the film's level of profanity and reach more audiences. Storyboarding was finished by October 2024, and filming was scheduled for June 2030.

### **Filming**

Principal photography began June 30, 2030 in Tijuana, Mexico due to it's favorable financial conditions, on an estimated $19 Million budget using the Panavision Panaflex 35 MM camera, In order to prevent confusion, the film was shot in rough chronological order. AVO chose the camera and the same film stock used in older movies to further emulate how the film would look. Additional scenes were shot on the North West at a later date. On July 10, 2030, AVO posted an update on his YouTube channel, stating that the film was moving smoothly and "was aiming for a possible November 2025 release". The long production schedule meant that the film often had time for multiple takes and had a daily 10 hour filming schedule from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Rodriguez said that shooting the film was smoother than expected. Since the actors that played Crazy Drunk Guy, General Winston and Sargent Hartman lived outside the United States, their scenes were often a priority for production, since there wasn't time for re-shoots. AVO said that the most complex scenes were postponed for a later date in the same year. On July 28, 2030, he posted an update that the film would be delayed to February 2031 to celebrate the 8-year-anniversary of the series.

Many scenes had to be postponed, since most of the actors lived near where AVO and Rodriguez lived, it was often easier to delay those scenes and instead film them as pick-up shots using a digital camera. AVO said that during their most complex shoot of all, which was during the final battle with Winston at the Space Needle, they would film on a replica of the space needle's rooftop above an empty building at night. In order to get a more convincing reaction out of the actors, AVO insisted to flicker the set lights with red and green in order to emulate lightning coming from the antenna. This was often stressful for the actors, since their eyes started to hurt due to the flickering light, though AVO found this to be realistic enough. "Using a 35 mm film camera was really something new for us, we thought it was awesome and really gave the film it's own unique style" said Rodriguez in an interview. The climactic battle was the only scene to be shot out of order, because it was the first scene to be filmed in the schedule, the actors thought it was going to be difficult since they had no previous build up to this moment in the film, however, due to the flickering lights, darkness and unwelcoming atmosphere, the actors acted more nervously, which worked more effectively and helped make more convincing expressions. Filming wrapped on August 8, 2030.

### **Post-Production**

The post production schedule ran from August 10, 2030 to January 2031. Due to how fast the film was being edited, the post-production team completed the first full 137-minute cut on September 1st, 2030, three weeks after filming concluded. The Post-Production team mostly focused on the film's visual quality instead of the special effects quality, since once a character was cropped into a shot through green screen, the shot was mostly unaltered in order to make it look as close to a vintage film's green screen shot, where chroma key lines were visible. The film every month on added a track of Elmer Bernstein's and Bear McCreary's score. "We sometimes altered green screen shots to make them look worse than what they originally looked in order for the film to more closely resemble older films." The crew took still frames from 80s films that heavily relied on special effects in order to figure how a certain scene should look. For the climactic explosion, the crew built a 1/144 scale Seattle Space Needle model in order to make the building look fake in the final shot and added a blowtorch together with pyrotechnics. Since the Panavision Panaflex they used was available solely through rental, the crew used the Canon EOS Rebel T8i set to 1/48 shutter speed during pick up shots , add a layer of scanned 35mm film over the video and would later color correct it to look like the scenes that were shot on film.

The film's first cut was screened on September 12, 2030 at a rented AMC theater for test audiences, AVO invited all the fans of the series that were in the same plaza as well as general audiences to the theaters and encouraged them to give them their "full-on honest opinion as to prevent another AVGN movie from happening." The audiences, both fans and general, erupted in applause when the end credits rolled. Many people were seemingly uninterested at the slow-paced opening but were engaged once the quest began for the sandwich. Audiences praised the nostalgic special effects obviously meant to look old and vintage. On October 26, the film was re-cut from 137 minutes down to 120. This cut featured around half of the film's score and some of the music provided by the band Men at Work and British singer Rick Astley. The audiences reacted better to the opening and again erupted in applause after the credits began. Apparently, AVO said that an entire row was biting their nails during the final moments of the climax. And every single audience member was payed $250 dollars to keep the screenings a secret. However, one audience member published a recorded video on Instagram revealing part of the screening and leaked 3 minutes of the film online. However, AVO decided not to take down the video as those 3 minutes didn't give away important plot details from the film and instead gave AVO an idea to cut down those 3 minutes, but the leak caused another delay to July 24, 2026. The third cut ran for 117 Minutes, however, AVO decided to remove one more scene in the final cut and the film decreased to 116 minutes.

The 116 minute cut now featured all of the original soundtrack from the film and the special effects and all pickup shots were finished. And the film just needed a complete audio correction in order to take a step further to make the audio from the film sound worse to further add to the detail of this being a film that could have come out in the 80s. During a final test screening of the film on December 18, not only did the audiences praise the film for it's nostalgic detail and it's entertainment and re-watch value, but it also featured the first trailer of the film, which raised great hype for the film. Paramount was so shocked by the positive response that they brought the release from July 24th to May 29. By this time, the only parts to be finished for the film were small details such as some color correction in some shots, a small amount of dialogue addition and a complete re-scan of the film to have it in a 4K, HDR display for theaters. The official, final, 100 minute cut was completed on March 28, 2031. AVO released a second trailer to the film the next day, and he said that "the hype only kept growing from there, I was kind of overwhelmed." On April 15, AVO released the final trailer on April 23, 2031 in order to increase the chance of profit at the box office. As the release date loomed, AVO began working on renting the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre for the film's premiere a week before the wide release.

### **Music**

    At an October 2030 presentation, it was confirmed that Bear McCreary signed on to compose the film's score. AVO worked closely with McCreary for them to analyze how 80s movie scores were composed. AVO wanted the film to have a "heroic" score like *Back to the Future* but at the same time emphasize on the comedic moments such as *Ghostbusters*. McCreary composed the dramatic and action-focused scenes as we as the comedic tracks of the movie, for the two of them to develop together the climactic tracks of the film as a sort of "culmination" between the two's relationship. They took inspiration from *Top Gun: Maverick's* score to create a "soaring, heroic score". The film's soundtrack was completed on March 1st, 2030 and was implemented onto the film.

McCreary composed the score with an orchestra, he wanted to give the film a military, heroic theme that fit with the themes of the film, the score began composition on November 2, 2030, every month, a new track was finished and added to the film, McCreary researched soundtracks from movies from the 70s and 80s to figure out what instruments were used and how they were used. Singer and song Rick Astley was offered $50,000 to implement his song Never Gonna Give You Up for the characters' road trip, he agreed as long as he was credited in the film. Australian rock band Men at Work were paid $50,000 to add their song Down Under in the end credits, chosen for it's energy and nostalgic appeal, and due to many members of the production crew being from Australian and New Zealand origins, the song was chosen as an honor towards those working in the film.

## Release

### Theatrical

The film premiered on April 4, 2031 at the Grauman's Egyptian Theater with the cast and crew in attendance, and was released theatrically on April 11 and later in Mexico on June 5, in both regular formats and in 4D. The film was apparently delayed four times and was pushed forward once. Rodriguez said in the premiere: "After 5 years in the making and many delays and script re-writes and changes, *The Comedy Garbage Movie* is finally here for all the fans to see." Apparently, during the screening, which was attended both by general audiences and fans, Brian Robbins said that the laughter was "deafening" and that the crowd repeatedly broke out into applause. AVO said after the screening: "So much hard work payed off, it was finished, the movie looked and sounded amazing, the crowd was thrilled." And there was a thunderous applause after the credits began to roll. After the film finished it's runtime, many people were asked in a survey on what score they would give the film from 1 to 10, and 92% of the surveyed people gave the film a positive review that fell on a 9, and most of those people were general audiences. AVO said: "Five years in the making, many re writes and scraps, but the movie is finally here."

### Home Media

The film was made available for free on AVO's YouTube channel in 4K HDR on July 2nd and as a digital download as well. And that the views of the film during the first week of digital release were averaging 22.2 million per week.

## Reception

### Box Office

The film was projected to gross $11 million during it's first weekend. after making $12 Million on it's first day and $14 Million on it's second, estimates were raised to $31 million. The film ended up grossing $36.3 Million during it's opening weekend from 1,502 theaters in the United States alone. AVO said in a post-release interview that the film made enough money on it's opening weekend to break even. It over performed in Mexico, the original series's largest market to make $18.8 Million for a total opening of $55.1 million dollars and went on to have the one of the biggest openings for an independently produced film of all time, finishing 5th at the box office. The film made enough money in it's opening weekend to provide profits for both Paramount and Sky Theory Studios. The film was released in the series's largest markets, which were the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Spain. The film closed on October 5th, 2026 and made $142.5 Million in the US and Canada, and $214.7 Million in other territories for a total of $357.3 Million at the box office and became the 7th highest grossing independent film of all time. It provided Paramount with a $20.2 Million dollar profit and Sky Theory Studios a $67.6 Million dollar profit for a total of $87.8 Million dollars, becoming one of the most profitable independent films ever released.

### Critical Response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 57% of 275 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "While the plot isn't anything new or innovative, it's nostalgic production quality, humor and chemistry between characters make this a fun thrill-ride from start to finish." The audience score is a near-perfect 92%, Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film 74 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while 90% of those polled by PostTrak gave it a positive score, with 80% saying they would recommend the film. The film was compared to Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie due to in the similarities of both of the film's plotlines, however, most of the people who compared it called the former "what the AVGN movie should have been."

Critics praised the film's visuals obviously meant to mock how the most iconic 80s movies looked and sounded like, and also praised the film's characters, and they knew the film would appeal to fans and general audiences as a whole. They praised the cast's energetic performances, but the screenplay was criticized for it's complexity, the lack of any strong emotional moments was also considered a missed opportunity. The climactic fighter jet sequence recieved widespread critical acclaim and was considered the best part of the movie, they praised it's nostalgic appeal, and how it followed the series' tradition of having an old "home-video feel", and how the film took it a step further to appear to be clearly made in the 80s. It was criticized for it's dark and frightening content, AVO reported that he heard a person in the audience scream: "This is a comedy movie?!". Audiences loved the film, they lauded the use of the main characters and praised the addition of a villain to the story, since the series lacked any real antagonist, so many considered this a fresh addition.

## Future

Though AVO said that a sequel wasn't completely ruled out, he said that it is highly unlikely due to how the film was followed by a fifth and final season that concluded the series in a satisfying way, and that the season acted as a sequel, and that though the movie was very fun to make, he said that it's just another part of Sky Theory's filmography that doesn't deserve to be continued in order to prevent ruining the film with an unnecessary continuation. However, AVO said that if a sequel did happen, it would probably focus on Jake going to college and beginning a new life as an adult, being a more emotionally involving film than the original.