All Hail the Popcorn King: Joe Lansdale doc gets salty-sweet trailer

All Hail the Popcorn King is an upcoming documentary about eclectic author, Joe Lansdale. A new trailer offers a tease of what fans and newbies can expect.

I’ve been exposed to enough of Joe Lansdale’s work to know he’s my kind of pulp writer. But he’s also not content to rest on his laurels and stick solely to a specific comfort zone. He’s always exploring disparate genres and fearlessly engaging with concepts that shouldn’t work…but by his confident hand, do.

I’ve read Bubba Ho-Tep, the tale of a geriatric Elvis joining forces with a black, wheelchair-bound John F. Kennedy to battle the titular mummy sucking down souls at their rest home. Hap and Leonard is iconic in its subversion of down-South race relations and stereotypes (the three-season TV series was gold; check it out if you haven’t already). And Jim Mickle’s film adaptation of Cold in July is one of the great neo-Noirs of the century thus far.

While renowned for his unconventional characters, unique plots, and brilliant way with dialog, how much is known of Joe Lansdale, the man behind a wild fictitious universe? All Hail the Popcorn King, a new documentary, looks to explore this enigmatic creative presence.

In the trailer for Hansi Oppenheimer’s documentary, there’s clearly a lot of love going around. The final moment lists a strong group of contributors (including Bruce Campbell, Mick Garris, and James Purefoy, among others) and there’s even a snippet of Lansdale’s daughter, Kasey praising her father.

The Q&A footage with Lansdale on the Cold in July Blu-ray presents an affable guy with a wicked sense of humor toward himself and his art. As someone who finds celebrity interviews nigh-intolerable, to listen to him is to be in awe of an intelligent, natural-born storyteller.

But being more familiar with the fiction than the man behind it, I am genuinely looking forward to whatever details All Hail the Popcorn King will reveal about the experiences that have shaped his body of work. Great documentaries allow the filmmaker full access to their subject (Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb springs to mind), and the obvious intimacy of this project has me anxious to learn more about Lansdale.

What is your favorite Joe Lansdale novel or film? Will you be checking out All Hail the Popcorn King? Let us know in the comments.