The Man Who Souled the World

He was skateboarding's most revolutionary figure. They were one of the most ingenius creative collectives of all time. Together they challenged every convention, declared war on the establishment, celebrated every taboo and broke all the rules. Steve Rocco, with a little help from his friends - Rodney Mullen, Marc McKee, Mark Gonzales, Jason Lee, Natas Kaupas, Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze - created a cultural revolution that changed the face of skateboarding forever.

To the uninitiated, skateboarding is typically viewed as a teenage triviality, a fad or 'a stage', but to more than 50 million people around the world it's a lawless religion to live and die by. The anti-authoritarian counter-culture surrounding skateboarding has had a far-reaching impact on society and generated some of the most unlikely cult heroes of the modern age.

This is the story of World Industries, the controversial skateboard company that transformed the subculture by utilizing tactics of manipulation, subversion and ambush to rewrite the rules, conquer the corporate giants who controlled the industry, and usher in a new era of skater-owned companies and skate-inspired entertainment.

Picking up where Dogtown left off at the conception of a movement, World Industries' legacy was to rear and deliver skate subculture to its finest moment. Not unlike cinema's spectacular coming-of-age in the 1930s, or the rise-and-rise of rock music in the 1960s, the 1990s were the definitive decade in the evolution of skateboarding.

Through the imagination, risk-taking and blind faith of World Industries' founding father Steve Rocco, a Pandora's box of irreverence, satire and mischief was unleashed. As a result, the products representing the attitude of this new world order were deliriously adopted by legions of emerging skateboarders around the globe, making the company and its founders some of the most powerful influences in skateboarding.

Despite their assertions that they were "just saying what needed to be said" and "never did anything unprovoked", the World Industries saga is littered with conflict, drama and dissent. In his quest to release professional skateboarders from the corporate cages built around them during the 1980s and promote uninhibited freedom of expression, ex-professional skateboarder Steve Rocco's livelihood and reputation was regularly threatened. From loan sharks and competitors to family and friends, World Industries was constantly under fire, precariously poised on the verge of total collapse, and endlessly demanding that everything be risked in order to survive.

By unashamedly espousing a "think crime" philosophy and satirizing Satanism, pornography, violence, suicide, profanity, racism, drug use and plagiarism in products aimed at kids, World Industries and its slew of spin-offs brands including Blind, Plan B, Bitch and Big Brother won more than their fair share of detractors. "We were just pushing the boundaries of things that hadn't been done before," defends Rocco. "And why not? I actually felt like we almost had an obligation to do it."

Battling corporate sabotage, media censorship and internal mutiny, World Industries ultimately prevailed, emerging from complete obscurity to fashion a new niche in the billion dollar skateboard industry that they could irrefutably call their own.

This is a story about the American Dream at its most volatile. A story about fame & fortune, scandal & rebellion, growing up & coming-of-age... but mainly it's about skateboarding, and what skateboarding is right now, and why it is the way it is. This definitive feature film is a must see for anybody interested in contemporary youth culture and proves that "in a mad world, only the mad are sane".