The Year in Review: 2022

 By: Andrew Bermudez

(Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Headquarters; December 31, 2022)

    As another year comes to a close, we have a lot to look back over from the past year. With a decent amount of content this year and more coming in the new year, here is everything that happened.

January

    January began with the release of Officer Spot, our entry into THAC 2022 which revived the never-realized (until now) story of a police dog who was the only police officer left in town! Not only did this film introduce an entire new location to our cinematic universe, but also gave us a new offering that has been engaging with newly-arriving fans! Also this month, the lead writer for the DINO ATTACK RPG, PeabodySam, joined our story team and helped us clean up some issues with the official canon, as well as begin working on creating new stories with us.

February

    February was a fairly quiet month, with the most interesting things happening being behind the scenes. However, we did evaluate our 2022 schedule and officially announced release dates for all of our releases from this year. On the other hand, we did have to delay both Johnny Thunder and the Secret of Marco Polo: The Adventure Retold and B.I.O. Corps, primarily because of Twenty Years Young and its needed preparations.

March

    March was an unusual month for us, as we were fairly quiet from an audience-facing perspective, but were hard at work from a behind-the-scenes perspective. We got everything ready to resume construction on the brand-new studio, as well as evaluated our assets and decided to off-load anything we had no plans to use again. On the other hand, we did complete Camel: The Movie for release the following month, though...

April

    April Fools! Camel: The Movie was actually delayed to December, with our April Fool's Day prank being a music video related to the film! In other news, while mostly behind the scenes, we really kicked the preparations for Twenty Years Young into overdrive, as well as finally resumed filming for both A Future in the Past and Alpha Team: Mission Deep City. We also rallied our story team together as part of these preparations and began writing for both Mustache Maniacs Film Co.: The Visual Dictionary - 3rd Edition and Tales Across the World: A Story Collection.

May

    May was fairly quiet, with most work happening internally. With that said, this is the month that development for Twenty Years Young really took off, while preparations were made to finish studio cleaning and prep. On top of this, work finally began on the production phase for Alms Pouch: Finished At Last!.

June

    June was the month of...more work! With that said, this was the month when we finally confirmed that Tale of Ulysses would be releasing July 17 as part of BRAWL 2022 and that Camel: The Album would release the same day. Other than that, all of the news in June was related to working on confidential projects and announced projects with confidential details. With that said, prices in our online store did go up this month in response to inflation.

July

    While work continued behind the scenes for Twenty Years Young, this month saw the release of another hit film: Tale of Ulysses! The film is the origin story for the character of Ulysses S. Powell and takes a look at his days in the U.S. Army during the hunt for Flatfoot Thompson. Also this month, Camel: The Album, our first-ever rock album, was officially released for purchase! The album initially featured eight (now eleven) songs inspired by Camel: The Movie, as well as mono mixes (no longer offered) and demos for hardcore music fans! If you want to buy it for yourself, just CLICK HERE to visit the page (price is $8.99)!

August

    With Speeder anticipated to be just a month away, August saw the beginning of development for this humorous remake of the pre-formation era film of the same name. Unbelievably, while the set design was overhauled to be as modern as possible, the exact same car used in the original film was pulled from storage for use in this remake! However, because this film got a late start in production, the film ended up being delayed to September 30.

September

    And then the film was delayed again to October 28. On the other hand, September did see major development for Speeder, including the filling of the film's roles with voice talent and a good amount of filming!

October

    And then the film was delayed yet again to November 11, then the 25, then the 28. With that said, filming did finish for Speeder this month, alongside finishing up the film's other assets. Essentially, all that was left was to take care of editing. In other news, in a continued review of the official canon, several continuity issues were resolved this month.

November

    And then the film...was finally released! Speeder officially debuted on November 28 with high-speed hijinks aplenty! This film marks our first-ever remake (two more are currently in the works) and brings one of our very-first films ever to the modern day in surprising new ways! Also this month, we officially confirmed that Camel: The Album would receive four new songs for the debut of Camel: The Movie, as well as the entire content line-up for Howling Hollow: The Forest of Fear.

December

    It's Camel, Camel (Camel, Camel) TIME! As we wrapped up the year, we launched our first Spin-Off of a Spin-Off, Camel: The Movie, on December 30. To celebrate, we expanded Camel: The Album with four new songs, one of which was written specifically for the film. It was a fun and funny way to send off the year, paying off the joke that was set up on April Fool's Day this year.

2023: What We Have Planned

    Generally speaking, 2023 is going to be a fairly quiet year for us at an audience-facing level. This is primarily because of the preparations needed for Twenty Years Young, but we're also working on some other projects as well, and this is alongside the voting period needed for The Fourth Mustache Maniacs Film Co. Fan Choice Awards. We only have four movies and one art project planned, but there are anything but minor projects!

    Hunted: A (Not) Bigfoot Story will be out on January 8 as our THAC 2023 entry, which tells the story of a hairy man who is mistaken for bigfoot! How will the story of this comedy play out? Pending THAC's theme rules, we'll just have to wait and see...

    Howling Hollow: The Forest of Fear will be debuting on February 1. However, as this is an art project for an all-new theme park land, we're going to be hosting this project via its own blog, with monthly updates here on this press room. We're also going to see this project get its own content on the Andrew Bermudez Art website, the official wiki, the online store (with mock-ups of designed land merchandise), and our YouTube Channels. We hope that you're just as excited about this as we are!

    After several delays, we are aiming to finally release Alms Pouch: Finished At Last! on May 26. This film is about to begin more work in its reanimating process, with several shots already finalized earlier this month! To celebrate, we're looking at releasing some new merchandise in our store, which we plan on revealing at a later time.

    Bradford Rant: Beginnings may be out July 2 as our BRAWL 2023 entry, though we cannot commit to that date until BRAWL 2023 is announced, along with the details of this short story. What we can confirm is that the film covers Dr. Bradford Rant's career, the mysteries surrounding it, and the events that led to the founding of the Bradford Rant Institute of Cosmic Kinesis. Stay tuned for more details later next year...

    Finally, A Future in the Past, the next chapter of Project U, may be out November 22. This is our major project for the year, and will be our first-ever big time-travel adventure! Based on the LEGO Time Cruisers product line, the story follows Ulysses S. Powell, Dr. Cyber, and Tim Timebuster, as they try to unravel the mystery that was set up in Braford Rant: Beginnings. What they end up unleashing turns out to be something much worse, leading them to race through time to try and stop the time crooks Professor Millennium and Tony Twister from changing history!

    Merry Christmas, Mustache Maniacs Film Co. fans! Thanks for keeping up with us this year, from the tragedy of Fort Legoredo in Tale of Ulysses to the merry mayhem of Camel: The Movie, and we look forward to seeing you all again next year, especially on April 18, where we're celebrating our nineteenth anniversary with a massive surprise!