Richmonds film Kangaroo Kids debuts Christmas Day | News, Sports, Jobs

Branscombe Richmond’s latest film “Kangaroo Kids” debuts on Christmas Day, streaming on the Sunn Stream app. Visit sunnstream.com for more information. Sunnstream.com photo

Branscombe Richmond has worked in the movie industry for more than 50 years, but he has never collaborated on a film quite like this.

Richmond, a longtime Maui resident, has a new family film out on Christmas Day: “Kangaroo Kids,” streaming exclusively on the Sunn Stream app, mixes in a little bit of everything — imagine a fun mix of “E.T.,” “Goonies” and “Home Alone.”

Richmond is an actor in the film and the producer of the film. This movie is aimed at family fun — Richmond is the CEO/owner of Richmond Family Films — and it comes with a Richmond family twist.

For the first time, Richmond hired his son and award-winning director Fairai Richmond to direct the film. Branscombe Richmond’s other children — Maro-uo, 46, Leohu, 34, and Terani, 31 — are all in the film industry as well.

“Richmond Family Films, my company, we dedicated ourselves to making family fare, good family movies, and our next one is going to be ‘Rocky the Robot’ and we start that in April,” Branscombe Richmond said in an interview with The Maui News. “At this time of our lives with all this weirdness going on worldwide, it’s nice to have some films that share aloha, no matter where you’re from.”

Richmond

Fairai Richmond, 41, is a graduate of Los Angeles Film School and this is his second movie as a director. He also co-wrote the film.

“It’s just a blessing, really,” Fairai Richmond told The Maui News. “My father gave me the great gift of introducing me to the thing that I love the most, which is movies. And so when I was growing up — before I was into sports or girls or anything — I was really just wanting to be around my father all the time. His career really started to take off when I was a pre-adolescent. So, I grew up on TV sets and movie sets and from there I caught the bug early, when I was around 7 to 9 years old.

“And all I wanted to do from that point on was make movies. So to be in the position of directing and actually creating a movie with my father is just a blessing because that’s our real connection, is my love for film and his love for film.”

Branscombe Richmond has been involved in more than 300 films and television shows — his credits list is impressive: “Batman Returns,” “The Scorpion King” and “Finding Ohana” are some of the films he has acted in. He was the co-star of the hit TV series “Renegade.”

He is an actor, producer, director, second unit director, stunt coordinator, vendor and CEO/Owner of Richmond Family Films. He has produced more than two dozen feature films.

A sneak preview of excerpted images from the film are shown here. Sunnstream.com images

Kangaroo Kids is the 10th film he has produced in Kentucky in the last five years and he is currently the Chairman of the Board of Sunn Stream.

“It is about a small-town USA with a bunch of young kids who help save a zoo,” Branscombe Richmond said. “It’s also a love story because the girl star (Josefina Baeza, 14) in our movie is kind of adopted and kind of part of a family, but she’s not blood.

“And as you know, in our infinite wisdom of being from an island here on Maui, you hanai, you adopt many, many people in your lives and you bring them into your home. So, that’s the main story.”

Richmond added that “the B-line story is there is a guy who wants to steal the kangaroo and he’s a mobster and he hires three bumbling bad guys and they have a change of heart once they have ‘Molly the kangaroo.’ … It’s heartwarming, it’ll make you cry. Who’s not in love with the kangaroos?”

Branscombe Richmond came up with the idea and wrote the script with Ryan Lieske. Garrett Sutton, the film’s executive producer, liked the idea so much that he told Richmond at AFM (American Film Market) that he wanted to finance and produce it right then and there.

Sutton is a non-fiction writer, attorney and founder of Sutton Law Centre and Corporate Direct. Previously, he has hosted Entrepreneur Magazine Legal Show. He is the owner and CEO of Sunn Stream, a new streaming service that launched this year.

Branscombe Richmond then asked Fairai Richmond, who just came off of directing the film “Decade of the Dead,” if he wanted to direct it and make some enrichments on the script.

The story revolves around Audrey, who owns the small Kentucky Down Under Zoo that is struggling with attendance sales. The bank wants her loan current in 24 hours or else they will take the keys. Audrey is relying on the arrival of Molly the Kangaroo, who is world famous after catching everyone’s attention after she was saved on live TV from the Australian brush fires.

Molly will call the zoo her new home. Audrey also has a 13-year-old foster daughter named Johnny who she can’t seem to connect with. Johnny doesn’t really connect with anyone, until she meets Molly.

Kodiak, Big Lizard and Marty are thieves for hire that screw up a job for the smarmy Jacob, a con artist who is currently tricking the rich widow Kathryn, in hopes to get control of her estate. His plan is to steal Molly, as a way to get in the good graces of her young son who has fallen ill.

The race is on for Kodiak and his two bumbling accomplices to steal Molly from the zoo, but Jacob also has more sinister plans when he sends his secret mistress Maria and her henchmen to double cross our thieves and steal not just Molly, but also the supposed money.

The posse of kids who are a big part of the saga are called “Zooies.” Branscombe Richamond also shared that the more than 50 kangaroos were used in the movie — from a kangaroo farm in Kentucky — were special to work with, even though they routinely took midday naps from 11 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m.

“The kangaroo is a wonderful being,” Richmond said. “In many ways this young girl connects with this kangaroo and heals her heart. … That’s the beauty of this kangaroo.”

The movie was shot in the Kentucky counties of Horse Cave, Cave City, Bowling Green and Mumfordville. Additional footage was filmed on Oahu and Maui — Richmond Family Films will soon be working on a project called “Turtle Town Kids,” all filmed on Maui.

“These are actually kangaroos, and that’s what the story’s about — good family fun,” said Branscombe Richmond, who has filmed seven movies on Maui.

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