Not so long ago in our own galaxy there lived a boy named Anthony Wright who went with his family to see Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith just like millions of other kids that summer in 2005. But young Wright saw something on that movie screen that most other kids his age didn’t — his future. By the time the end titles flashed upon the screen, Wright knew he wanted to make movies.
So he did. And the resulting film, Monarch, has its Toledo premiere on Friday at the Maumee Indoor Theatre.
Monarch premiered in Bainbridge, Ohio last year at the Chaos Film Festival, where the film took the “Best of the Fest” prize. Since then, the scrappy 44-minute film has attracted a buzz around the festival circuit, also taking the best pilot prize at the Sci-Fest Film Festival in Memphis, Tenn. Wright will be screening Monarch at a variety of film festivals around the country this summer.
Monarch tells the story of Danny (Youseff Baddar) a young man who lost his wife Sarah (Vanessa Leonard) when she was a victim of an armed robbery. And now Danny will do anything to go back in time and prevent this tragedy from happening.
What: Monarch, a film by Anthony Wright
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: Maumee Indoor Theatre, 601 Conant St., Maumee
Admission: Free
Info: Anthony Wright Films on Facebook at bit.ly/3Itn4R7
“There’s lots of unexpected twists and turns,” Wright said with a laugh.
Filming of Monarch took about six months, with film locations set in several recognizable local businesses, including Brew Coffee Bar, Home Slice Pizza, Dale’s Bar and Grill, and the Basement below the Distillery.
By day, Wright runs Anthony Wright Films, his own production company that does everything from weddings to music videos to corporate promotional films. But by night, Wright is also a screenwriter, a dreamer, and a film director to the core, just like his heroes George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
A born and bred Toledoan, Wright attended Central Catholic High School and University of Toledo, graduating the latter in 2018 with degrees in film and communications. As a kid, he and his friends would pretend to be Luke and Han or Indiana Jones and make home movies of their backyard adventures.
“My friends and I borrowed my parents’ old VHS video camera and we starting filming lightsaber battles in the backyard, and it just snowballed from there,” said Wright, who says the coronavirus pandemic lockdown of 2020 resulted in him losing most of his film clients. Now facing some serious downtime, he did what artists do — create.
“Since work was on hold, I decided I wasn't going to sit and mope around. I wanted to write a story based on the types of movies that I like to watch,” said Wright.
In April of 2020, he wrote the screenplay to Monarch, citing Stephen King film adaptations such as Stand by Me, The Shining, and 11/22/63 as inspiration.
Monarch was produced by Philip Soto, founder of Buckeyewood Entertainment LLC, who hired Wright to do some film work for his company. He was impressed with Wright’s work ethic and camera skills, and Wright told him about the screenplay he’d been working on.
“When he told me it was about time travel, that’s all I needed to hear. I was in,” said Soto, who co-financed the film with Wright. “Anybody who likes time-travel movies that have a couple twists and turns in it will like this movie. It’s not as good as Back to the Future, but it’s pretty good for a movie that someone made in town.”
Wright is currently at work on a road trip comedy/drama and is happy he got a chance to make Monarch.
“People seem to really like the film and that’s an incredible feeling,” he said.
First Published March 25, 2022, 12:00 p.m.
