As he releases, just in time for Christmas, the 12th full-length feature film that has been written and directed entirely by him, the most remarkable aspect about Utah movie-maker Eric Hendershot's career may not be that he's managed to last over three decades in a business that considers ancient history anything that has gone to video.
It's that he's stayed alive and thrived all these years with nothing above PG ratings.
Not bad for a guy not named Disney.
Hendershot's latest film, "Boathouse Detectives," will make its on-demand television debut in March, but Utahns can get a sneak peak because the DVD is being released at select Utah locations this week. Deseret Book is carrying the movie at all its outlets and also online (deseretbook.com), as is the BYU Bookstore (byubookstore.com).
Throughout his career, Hendershot has specialized in making movies emphasizing the F word, as in Family. He is yet to make a movie you couldn't sit down and watch in a convent.
His plots revolve mainly around kids. Kids getting into predicaments, kids getting out of predicaments, kids having adventures, kids teaching life's lessons to everyone.
"Boathouse Detectives" isn't a sequel exactly, but it does carry on a Hendershot tradition that started with "Clubhouse Detectives," a film he released in 1996 and spawned "Clubhouse Detectives in Search of a Lost Princess," "Clubhouse Detectives in Big Trouble" and "Clubhouse Detectives in Scavenger Hunt."
Hendershot writes all his own material. It was as a writer that he broke into show business in the first place — back in 1978, when he submitted a script to director Kieth Merrill with a high school wrestling theme called "Take Down."
Merrill turned the script into a successful movie. When yet another of his scripts, called "The Impostor," was turned into a made-for-TV movie by ABC, Hendershot was able to quit his job as a high school English teacher and wrestling coach at Sandy's Alta High School and move to Hollywood.
He didn't stay long in California, but he did stay long in filmmaking.
He and his wife Dickilyn moved their family of eight children back to Utah, in St. George, and after producing several successful documentaries he discovered the two-step secret to long-term feature film success:
1, Don't just write the movie.
2, Also direct the movie.
"As a writer, you're the first one hired, the first one fired," says Hendershot. "But if you're the director, you're king."
You decide who goes and who stays — and what goes and what stays.
Hendershot has stuck to that script ever since the first "Clubhouse Detectives."
He's been just as strict about never creating content that goes against his own personal standards.
If it's something he finds out-of-bounds or offensive, he won't write it and he won't direct it. No matter how many tickets it might sell.
He's been approached to direct movies that could qualify for an R rating — bigger budget movies that would elevate his résumé and increase the demand for his services — but he's turned down all the offers.
"I've got too many grandkids I have to look in the eye," he says. The Hendershots, who recently moved to Springville, are expecting their 16th and 17th grandchildren in the next five or six months.
But he isn't complaining about the niche he's carved out in the movie business.
He's the family man. It's a very good niche.
Lee Benson's column runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com.