Angus Sampson puts his ass online to live tweet The Mule Angus Sampson has come up with a bold new weapon in the battle to get audiences to see Australian films: the power of Twitter. The Mule, the rollicking comedy-drama in which he stars as a dopey drug smuggler in police custody trying to avoid going to the toilet (guess where he's popped his stash), will be released straight to people's desktops simultaneously this Friday in Australia, New Zealand and North America, following one-off event screenings in Sydney and Melbourne. All things must pass: Angus Sampson in The Mule. The communal experience of movie-watching will find new expression, however, in a worldwide Twitter session on December 7, when - from 3pm in Eastern Australia and 9pm in Los Angeles - audiences will be able to simultaneously watch the film, tweet the stars and their guests, and win prizes. Australian producers are usually required, under the terms of the producers' offset tax rebate, to screen their films in cinemas first, with a lag of 120 days (the release window) before the film can be screened on other platforms, such as TV, DVD or VOD. But Sampson and his fellow producers successfully argued for the usual release requirements to be waived. "We were contracted with Screen Australia to have a limited release," he says. But why would you? Why would you put it on at a cinema that isn't convenient, at a time that isn't convenient, and at a price that is not affordable for most of the population? Event screenings are not an entirely new ploy for Australian releases. The Turning was shown only in event screenings before airing on television, while Around the Block had only a few "four-wall" screenings (arranged and funded by the production team rather than a distributor) before releasing on DVD and VOD one month later. However, The Mule's courting of the Twitterverse shifts the focus away from cinemas almost entirely. Sampson admits they are thinking of hiring some cinemas so fans can all tweet together. "But anyone around the world can join in," he adds. Sampson wrote The Mule with Leigh Whannell (one of the originators of the Saw series), from an original script by Jaime Brown. The cast includes such noteworthy Australian actors as Noni Hazlehurst, John Noble and Hugo Weaving. Full of twists and black humour, it has been compared to the Coen brothers' Fargo, although even the Coens might not include the gut-wrenching scene in which Sampson's Ray re-ingests the bags of heroin he has managed to excrete while his police guard is asleep. The trailer is already doing brisk click-business in the United States. Even so, says Sampson, a film like The Mule can't compete with Hollywood blockbusters backed up with a $US30 million ($35 million) publicity campaign. "For us to be compared to something like that is criminal and insane," he says. Four months later you're trying to sell the DVD and Blu-ray and the stores see that your film made about $12 at the cinema, so the presumption is that it didn't resonate. What we're finding is that by going to digital first, sales are already five times what they would be normally. Other than that, it's all about the clicks. "I didn't set out to be a trailblazer," says Sampson. What I'm doing, with the producers, is applying logic. There are 23 million Australians and probably half of them have the internet, which means they have to press one button to see the film. What isn't logical is to make them find the film to see the film. The Mule will be available for digital download via iTunes and others from November 21, followed by Blu-Ray, DVD and digital rental from December 3. Details at themulethemovie.com