Below the cinema of oil flows an honorable tradition of madness. -The New Yorker
The next great Texas oil film. -Texas Monthly
The Iron Orchard is an epic. -Austin Monthly
After 50 plus years of anticipation, The Iron Orchard finally had its theatrical premiere on February 20, 2019. The premiere took place in Fort Worth and as usual, Texas delivered high energy and support! Actors Lane Garrison and Ned Van Zandt arrived to the theater in style and excitement buzzed around the red carpet. A Q&A with the director, cast, and producers followed the screening and then the after party commenced!
On February 22nd, the film opened on 8 screens throughout Texas. The audiences are loving it, numbers don’t lie! Over the weekend, The Iron Orchard was the #2 highest grossing movie in America based on per screen average. It only trailed behind How to Train Your Dragon 2, which had a $129 million budget. On March 1 it expanded to 40+ screens across Texas as well as in L.A. and NYC.
2. The gentleman that played Lee’s father is the son of Tom Pendleton, the original book author.
3. The truck driver at the beginning of the movie is Rooster McConaughey, the brother of Mathew McConaughey. Rooster lives in Midland, Texas and owns an oil field pipe company.
4. The oilmen in the Settles Hotel lobby scene are current day oilmen mostly from Midland, not actors.
5. The beard and stain on the man spitting tobacco were authentic, minimal make-up needed.
6. A Midland oil executive provided his collection of classic cars at no cost. The director in return provided the following one-line speaking part: “I want to talk to you about the Wolfcamp.”
7. The Wolfcamp Shale is located in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. This oil and gas reserve has accounted for most of the production in the Permian Basin since 2007 and is considered to be the fourth largest field in the world with an estimated 46.3 billion barrels of oil.
8. The oil gusher had to be filmed in one take with a firetruck water hose providing the energy for the oil (actually made of water, vegetable oil, and food dye) to shoot into the air.
9. Almost all of the roughnecks working on the drilling rigs are real-life roughnecks, not actors.
10. The cable tool rig used during Jim’s first oil strike is an actual working, functional rig still used in the famous Yates Field in Irion County, Texas.
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