producer's dispatch

One of the most important lessons of my film producer career came from Iron Sky.

When we started building Iron Sky, we quickly discovered the powerful force of the fanbase. Through community building, social media, events, crowdfunding and direct engagement, we created what felt like the most effective marketing machine imaginable. For a small independent science fiction film, the possibilities seemed limitless.

And in many ways, they were.

What followed was a global phenomenon. Millions of people around the world heard about Iron Sky long before its release. The community grew, the excitement grew, and eventually the hype reached a level that few independent films have ever experienced.

But looking back, I have to admit something.

A large part of that achievement was wasted.

Not because the fans failed us. Quite the opposite. The fans did everything they could. The problem was that the industry was not ready for what we had built.

When the excitement around Iron Sky was at its highest, the film was sold practically all over the world, but it was only available in a handful of territories. Scandinavia and German-speaking Europe could see it, but most of the world could not. Yet people everywhere wanted to watch it.

The result was unprecedented piracy. During the first year alone, Iron Sky was illegally downloaded more than 50 million times.

Despite this, Iron Sky still generated more than ten million euros at the box office. Personally, I believe the result could have been many times higher if the film had been legally available when the audience was ready to watch it.

The real problem was timing.

Today, however, things are changing.

For years, we believed that building an audience before a film exists would become one of the most valuable assets in filmmaking. Recent developments suggest that this is finally becoming reality. Projects such as Iron Lung, Backrooms and Obsession demonstrate that fandom is no longer simply a marketing advantage—it can become the foundation of an entire business model.

In the past, the industry often started with a good story and assumed it could find an audience later.

Increasingly, it works the other way around.

A good story is still essential. But without an audience, it may never cut through the noise.

That is one of the reasons Deep Red exists.

There are no guarantees in filmmaking. But with Deep Red, we are taking everything we learned from Iron Sky—the successes, the mistakes and the lessons—and combining them with the opportunities created by modern technology, direct audience relationships and new distribution models the world seems to be ready for.

We are not simply building a film.

We are building a long-term science fiction universe together with the people who believe in it.

And unlike many franchises, where audiences wait years and years between installments, Deep Red has been designed from the beginning as a trilogy with a clear roadmap and production plan.— Tero KaukomaaProducer, Deep Red