Hundreds of Beavers

Two beavers sneak into the orchard of successful 19th-century applejack salesman Jean Kayak and eat the support beams of his two giant kegs. One rolls away with a drunken Jean not noticing while the second keg rolls down to his house and explodes, destroying his orchard and knocking Jean out. Jean wakes up in winter and repeatedly fails to catch food. He finds a group of beavers collecting logs to build a structure and attacks a pair, but is beaten up by them. He catches fish by making his fingers bleed and using them as lures, and when he sells the fish to a local merchant, he notices a fur trapper turning a large profit.

Jean buys a knife and cuts his shirt into rope. He hunts rabbits and realizes they use a tunnel system. He rigs an exit with the rope and lures them into it, but raccoons eat his catches before he can get to them. He cuts up his pants to hoist the rabbits in the air and out of their reach. Jean catches a raccoon and runs into an Indian Fur Trapper, who trades him snowshoes for the knife, and the merchant's daughter skins the raccoon and makes it into clothing for Jean.

Jean breaks his leg when he falls into a pit made by the trapper, who rescues him and takes him on as his protégé. Wolves start killing the trapper's dogs, and when the pack attacks in full, the trapper gives Jean his trapping guide before being killed. Jean erases it and starts a new guide as he begins to master the area, finding creative ways to trap the area's animals, selling them to the merchant and trading with the Indian Fur Trapper for better gear. He and the merchant's daughter develop a mutual attraction, but the merchant demands hundreds of beavers for her hand in marriage. A pair of beavers styled after Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson begin investigating Jean's traps.

Jean realizes the wolves in the area are hoarding the trapper's large collection of beaver carcasses. When the detectives report back to the beavers, who have built a massive dam, they send a large squadron after Jean. He lures them into the wolf cave and seals the entrance with icicles, allowing the wolves to slaughter them. He brings the bodies back to the merchant's cabin, only for it to be a cardboard cutout made by the detectives, who take the bodies to be buried.

Jean sneaks into the dam, but is eventually caught and put on trial for his beaver killing. He is found guilty and set to be skinned and made into a coat, the same thing having happened to the trapper. Jean narrowly escapes his restraints and beats up the group of beavers trying to kill him. While trying to escape, he notices the beavers building a rocket ship out of one of his kegs. He accidentally pushes a beaver into it, causing it to malfunction and launch in the wrong direction, breaking the dam and creating the Green Bay with the flood.

Jean rolls the bundle of beaver bodies into a snowball, which he rides as the beavers climb on top of each other to form a giant figure and chase him. The Indian Fur Trapper latches onto the rocket with a grappling arrow and launches it at the beavers, destroying the figure. The snowball of hundreds of beaver pelts stops at the merchant's cabin, and Jean is allowed to marry the merchant's daughter.

• Ryland Tews as Jean Kayak
• Olivia Graves as The Furrier
• Wes Tank as The Master Fur Trapper
• Doug Mancheski as The Merchant
• Luis Rico as The Indian Fur Trapper

Abbott and Costello

Buster Keaton

Charlie Chaplin

The Three Stooges

Hundreds of Beavers's slapstick comedy was inspired by the works of Abbott and Costello, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and The Three Stooges.

Filmmakers Mike Cheslik and Ryland Tews met at Whitefish Bay High School and came to collaborate on film projects.^[3] The duo made Lake Michigan Monster, a black-and-white film that cost $7,000, in 2018.^[4][5] The idea for Hundreds of Beavers was created by Cheslik and Tews while at a bar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in October 2018. Cheslik directed, wrote, edited, and created the visual effects for the film while Tews played the lead role.^[6] It was originally conceived as a parody film of The Revenant and survival films.^[7] The script was a two-page treatment filled in with notecards and gag drawings which Cheslik compared it to the screenwriting techniques of George Miller.^[8]

Enough money was raised to film the first act, which was shot over the course of three to four weeks. The footage was then showed to other investors which allowed the rest of the film to be shot.^[9] The black-and-white film had a budget of $150,000. It was filmed over the course of twelve weeks by a six-person crew using a Panasonic GH5, which filmed it in 1080p, in winter in 2019 and 2020.^{[6][4][9][10]} The crew stayed at a cabin in Manitowish Waters.^[11] Nine weeks of filming was done in Stephenson, Michigan, and the northern Wisconsin towns of Manitowish Waters, Pembine, and Superior.^[12][6]

Mike Cheslik discussing the film on YouTube in 2024

Ryland Tews at the 50th Summer Film School in Uherské Hradiště in 2024

Hundreds of Beavers was made by Mike Cheslik and Ryland Tews.

The beaver suits were purchased online from a Chinese mascot website, with the teeth being modified by the filmmakers.^[13] Eric West, Daniel Long, Jay Brown, and Mike Wesolowski wore the beaver costumes.^[14] Jon Truei was the fight choreographer.^[15] Over 1,500 visual effects were made using Adobe After Effects. Editing and post-production took two years to complete.^[6][4][10] Tews' father Wayne composed and performed songs for the film.^[11] Sound designer Bobb Barito used wooden kazoos, wooden clapper toys, and other wooden objects for the sounds in the film and used audio distortion for scenes including violence as "Violence sounds funniest when it's really distorted".^[10]

Inspiration was drawn from the Mario video games, America's Funniest Home Videos, and the slapstick comedy of Abbott and Costello, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and The Three Stooges.^[6] Ernst Lubitsch's The Wildcat also inspired the film. Tews based his movements in the film on Jackie Chan, while specific allusions to silent comedies include a scene that references the 1925 film Seven Chances, in which Keaton is chased by a horde of angry women.^[3] The second act of Hundreds of Beavers was designed to be like watching a let's play.^[16] The film's poster is similar to the poster for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World^[11][17] and was praised as one of the best film posters of 2024 by IndieWire.^[18]

Hundreds of Beavers, with a runtime of 108 minutes,^[19] premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2022.^[20] It premiered in Canada at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival^[21] and in the United Kingdom at DukeFest on August 13.^[22] It was also shown at the Sitges Film Festival^[23] and at the Library of Congress on July 27, 2024.^[24]

Cheslik and the producers chose to distribute the film themselves and Kurt Ravenwood oversaw the promotion campaign. They were aided by Jessica Rosner, a former executive at Kino Lorber.^[20] Milwaukee-based ad agency SRH (named after Matt Sabljak, Ravenwood, and Sam Hogerton) spent $37,636.19 promoting the film.^[25][26] Hundreds of Beavers was shown at fourteen independent theaters in the Great Lakes region, including the Music Box Theatre.^[20]

The filmmakers rejected distribution offers made after festival showings as those plans would only show the film in theaters for a week before sending it to video on demand.^[9] As of November 2024, the film was never shown in more than 33 theaters at once. An encore showing was conducted in around 70 theaters starting on December 5.^[27] A 35mm print of the film was shown on February 26, 2025, in Dallas, Texas.^[28]

Aerofilms [cs] premiered the film in the Czech Republic on May 9, 2024.^[29][30] Lightbulb Film Distribution distributed the film in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom on July 9.^[31] Tews toured 40 cities in the United Kingdom over the course of four months. A German release, managed by Lightbulb and 24 Bilder, opened in 68 theaters on February 13, 2025.^[32] The streaming rights were sold to Cineverse.^[33] The film received a video on demand release on April 15, 2024.^[34] More than half of the film's box office earnings were made after being released through video on demand.^[35] It was released on Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome on January 28, 2025,^[14] and has sold 10,000 copies.^[36] A special edition version for VHS is set for release.^[28]