The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest
20th Century Fox | |
Release date | June 28, 2002 (U.S.) |
|---|---|
Running time | 105 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $17,000,000[1] |
| Box office | $5,491[2] |
The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest is a 2002 film based on the novel of the same name by technology-culture writer Po Bronson. The film stars Adam Garcia and Rosario Dawson. The screenplay was written by Jon Favreau and Gary Tieche.
Plot
Andy Kasper is a marketer who quits his job in search of something more fulfilling. He gets hired at LaHonda Research Institute, where Francis Benoit assigns him to design the PC99, a $99 PC. He moves into a run-down apartment building where he meets his neighbor Alisa, who's an artist, and puts together a team of unassigned employees. The team includes: Salman Fard, a short, foreign man with an accent who is hacking into
The team finds many non-essential parts but cannot come close to the $99 mark. It is Salman's idea to put all the software on the
But immediately before he finishes, the whole team (except for Tiny, who is still writing the code) quits LaHonda after being told that there are no more funds for their project, but sign a non-exclusive patent waiver, meaning that LaHonda will share the patent rights to any technology they had developed up to that point. After leaving LaHonda, they pitch their product to numerous companies, but do not get accepted, mainly because the prototype emagi (electronic magic) was ugly, and something always seemed to go wrong during the demonstration of their product.
Alisa, whose relationship with Andy has been growing steadily, helps improve the emagi's looks, which helps the team with their callback with executive. They agree to give her 51% of their company in exchange for getting their product manufactured and for getting Andy's Porsche bought back, which he had had to sell in order to raise money to build a new emagi after leaving LaHonda. Unfortunately, she then sells the
The team interrupts the meeting in which Benoit is going to introduce the emagi to the world and introduces an even newer computer he and his team developed and manufactured at LaHonda, which was in a state of disaster when they arrived. It was a small silver tube that projected a
Cast
- Adam Garcia as Andy Kasper
- Rosario Dawson as Alisa
- Anjul Nigam as Salman Fard
- Ethan Suplee as Curtis "Tiny" Russell
- Jake Busey as Darrell
- Enrico Colantoni as Francis Benoit
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 11% of 9 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3/10.[3]
References
- ^ "Marco Beltrami: Film music credits". Freebase. Archived from the original on 2012-03-04. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- ^ "The First $20 Million... (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2010-09-13.
- ^ "The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media.
