‘Hunting Matthew Nichols’: From Guerrilla Marketing to Directly Pitching Theater Owners, This $275K Indie Turned a Profit Before it Even Was Released

By William Earl

William Earl

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Markian Tarasiuk and Sean Harris Oliver were two Vancouver-based artists who ran neighboring theater companies. But when the pandemic hit in 2020, they came to a bleak realization.

“Theater’s dead — really dead — right now,” Tarasiuk says. “What can we do to stay creative?”

One day, while the friends were playing tennis, Tarasiuk shared a delicious idea: What if we made “a Netflix true crime documentary that turns into a horror movie?” Oliver took the idea and ran with it, writing up an early 50-page outline for the film “Hunting Matthew Nichols,” the finished version of which is opening in theaters today via Moon7.

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