The Josie Book


My name is Russ Burlingame, and I'm an entertainment journalist. I currently work for a major geek-news site and have worked in and around that space consistently since 1999. For the last six months, I've been conducting dozens of interviews with cast, crew, and fans of the 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats.

The film, which was a box office bomb when it was released, has become a cult classic in the intervening years, and to celebrate its 20th anniversary in April, I wanted to write an (unofficial) oral history -- one which incorporates some of the well-worn stories of the film's production as well as new information, some folks who I don't believe have ever been interviewed about their ties to the film, and more.

Josie and the Pussycats isn't the kind of film that generally gets a book written about it, but like the wonderful (but unrelated) Josie and the Podcats podcast from 2020, the aim here is to inform the reader while celebrating this movie and the people who contributed to its cult classic status.

The movie is an underrated gem, and I love it. More than that, though, exploring how a movie failed at the box office but went on to find its audience years and decades later is a fascinating narrative in itself. There's a whole segment of the book that talks with fans -- both the famous and the everyday -- about why they love this movie, and how they helped it remain beloved long after more successful films of the same era have lost their luster.

I love this project. I would do it if for free. But if I did, it would do a disservice to the people who have helped me put it together (and those who have committed to do so, since I still have a handful of interviews ahead of me as of this writing). Putting together a fan page, or even a series of interviews at the site where I work, would be ephemeral. Much of my early journalistic writing is now lost to the sands of time after sites have gone out of business or just revamped their websites to get rid of the old and usher in the new. To write a definitive and meaningful exploration of this film, its production, reception, and legacy, I wanted to do more.

That, of course, is where crowdfunding comes in. To do the book in the way I wanted, and to have it completed in 2021, I decided early on that I would crowdfund some elements of the project in order to bring it from theory to reality.


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