Movies

We Celebrate April Fools’ Days With a Special Edition Comic, A Contest and A Look Back

By  · Published on April 1st, 2013

Here at Film School Rejects, we’ve never been shy about playing the fool’s game on the first of April. Longtime readers will note that we’ve done something special every year for a while now. It’s essentially our silly Christmas come to life in the form of an internet prank. Whether it was dedicating an entire day to our love for Michael Bay’s Armageddon or putting you in a time machine destined for 1980, we’ve always strived to find a way to celebrate April Fools’ Day that does not involve making up random movie rumors. That’s the environment we found ourselves in several years ago, when April 1 meant a bunch of stories you couldn’t believe, as most of them were made up to throw off otherwise earnest movie lovers. We’re not those kind of people, who would lie to you for a laugh. We’d rather get everyone laughing together. Thus began our great tradition of pranks. This year, we’re keeping things simple and above-board, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun.

A Look Back

It started in 2010 with the decision that we wanted to honor the age-old tradition of April Fools’ Day with an actual prank. That spiraled down hill quickly into a decision to put FSR in a time machine and see what it would have been like to write about movies in 1980. As it turns out, not much has changed…

In 2011, we took it up a notch. Up to the level of Michael Bay and his asteroid-fueled ballad Armageddon. In celebration, we dedicated an entire day to nothing but Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis and drilling. We still don’t want to close our eyes, don’t want to fall asleep…

And of course, last year we decided that print was the future. A decision we would later turn our backs on, as we weren’t that serious in the first place…

This Year

In 2013, we’re keeping things simple. While we await the pranks other sites will play to see if any of them live up to what we’ve done in the past, we want you to be able to relax and enjoy this special edition comic by our own Film Jockeys author Derek Bacon. It’s your special peek into what Reject HQ could look like on any given day. You may have noticed the comic on your way into the site today. If you clicked by it too fast, we’ve included it below along with a chance for you to win a special prize.

Can you pick out all of the movie references in this April Fools’ comic? If so, we’d like you write them down and send them to contests@filmschoolrejects.com. Everyone who sends in an entry will be entered into a drawing to win a $50 Fandango digital gift card. So that you can see more movies. Want to have your name in the entry pool more than once? You will receive an additional entry for each of the following actions:

  1. Head to our Facebook page and share the comic with your friends.
  2. Share the comic on Twitter and use hashtag #RejectAprilFools.
  3. Share the comic on Google+ and use hashtag #RejectAprilFools.
  4. Share the comic on Tumblr and use hashtag… you guessed it, #RejectAprilFools.

If you do it all, that’s your name entered 5 times to win the gift card. That’s 5 more chances to win than someone who does absolutely nothing.

Happy April Fools’ Day everyone! Don’t believe anything you read!

Neil Miller is the persistently-bearded Publisher of Film School Rejects, Nonfics, and One Perfect Shot. He's also the Executive Producer of the One Perfect Shot TV show (currently streaming on HBO Max) and the co-host of Trial By Content on The Ringer Podcast Network. He can be found on Twitter here: @rejects (He/Him)