July 2011

In an early interview after the webseries concluded, Matt and Jay revealed “We’re making a movie […] you’re gonna love it, it’s wicked. It’s gonna be really funny. We’re going on a cross Canada tour, opening for all the best bands in Canada. And we’re gonna get a Winnebago, and deck it out just like our apartment with a piano and all the same stuff, and take it on a tour with these bands all across the country.”

April 2023

Someone runs into Matt and he tells them they will be filming “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” in the summer of 2023.

May 2023

The Globe and Mail shared that Matt’s next film would find him “returning to his roots” with a “smaller-scale movie based on Nirvanna that will shoot in Toronto and Europe this summer, which the filmmaker and Matt Miller hope will start a Canadian-flavoured Harold & Kumar-style franchise”. They also mention “an ambitious time-travel movie, and another based on a real-life drug-trafficking case involving Canadian journalists”. The time-travel movie was referring to a previously announced film to be titled “Kill Hitler”.

May 2023

Matt says during a Blackberry Q&A “As soon as we got back from the premiere of this movie […] we got the opportunity to make a Nirvanna the Band movie, which we took instantly! Which we’re making NOW!

June 2023

An IMDB listing for a new episode of the show is listed for a 2024 release titled “The Trip”. This was speculated to be the movie.

August 2023

Matt reveals on a Blackberry podcast interview that the movie will be a RV Road Trip movie that takes a lot of inspiration from the book “Confederacy of Dunces”. In one sequence they crash in New Orleans and Matt needs to get a job as a hot dog vendor to afford the repairs. Most of the movie was being shot in New Orleans at this time.

August 2023

Telefilm Canada announces they’ve funded 13 new feature-length films. One of them named “Untitled Matt Johnson Project” with screenwriters Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol. This was the first ““official”” announcement of the film.

August 2023

During a panel at FanExpo, Jay said the movie was in pre-production and that shooting actually hadn’t begun yet. Shooting would begin “really soon” and he confirmed the RV road trip plot and that the movie would be “canon” to the show in some way.

October 2023

Jay starts posting some BTS pics/vids of the filming of the movie on his instagram stories. One included a video of the two sneaking around.

January 2024

In an interview with Pete Holmes, Matt is in the attic of the production house for the movie.

March 2024

Matt says in an interview with Yahoo “the people who like the show will really like the movie, because there’s lots of tricks in it, even in how we’ve been talking about it in the press […] It’s not what people think it’s going to be”. He also noted that the year 2005 will play a significant role in the plot.

April 2024

People start posting rumours on the subreddit that the movie will somehow contain time-travel.

May 2024

Someone on the subreddit spotted Matt and Jared in the background of a news report about a shooting outside Drake’s mansion. This was believed to be used for the movie.</div>

July 2024

A casting call is put out for the movie under the production title “MATT & JAY GO AMERICA”. It was at this time that fans started to speculate whether or not two movies were in production at the same time.

July 2024

Someone posts an image to reddit asking what is going on at Queen St. Matt and Jay can be seen to the left with the crew filming behind them. This is believed to be a back to the future related reference, seemingly confirming the time travel aspect of the movie. Later, someone else posts to the subreddit from their perspective, confirming that the crew were telling people the movie was “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” even though the casting sheets said “Matt and Jay Go America”, confirming it was just a working title.

August 2024

At the Cinematic Arts Awards, Jay wins the Achievement in Music award for Original Score. When he gets up on stage, he does this brief stunt, which was presumably going to be used for the movie.

September 2024

A fan speaks to Matt at the premiere of Matt and Mara, asking about the movie. Matt says the movie will be premiering in the US at SXSW next March, but there were no other release plans as the movie hadn’t been purchased yet.

September 2024

A video is posted to instagram of Matt and Jay playing a Goldeneye mod with themselves in the new house (likely being used for the movie)

September 2024

The crew posts to instagram that they are moving out of the new house, and are getting rid of props. Only one potential reference to the movie could be found amongst the props.

November 2024

A fan spotted Matt and Jay out with the crew still filming for the movie.

December 2024

In an interview at CIFF23, Matt talks about the movie briefly, saying “In the movie I’m making right now, the movie is about lies. And it’s about a character who lies to maintain a friendship. […] What happens is a character lies to his best friend, and his best friend has just told him ‘NO MORE LYING MATT!’ and I say ‘I promise I’ll never lie again’, okay? And then I IMMEDIATELY LIE. And I spend the whole movie trying to turn my lie into the truth, by making what I lied about actually happen.” This is likely a hint at the time-travel portion of the plot.

January 2025

“Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” was officially announced to be premiering at SXSW in March. The movie had the description “When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008. Blah blah blah blah blah”. The movie was listed with a runtime of 107 mins.

February 2025

A Plex listing appeared for the movie stating the movie had a runtime of 2h5m.

March 2025

The movie premiered on March 9th, 2025 at SXSW with great success. In the Q&A following the premiere, there were a few notable bits:

• Matt confirms they re-shot the movie 3 different times and changed the plot completely each time. He also said that after submitting the film to SXSW, they re-shot over 50% of it.
• Matt says “Making this film was sort of our attempt to try to find a place to launch Season 3, I’ll give you a little clue too about this movie […] In season 3, get ready to watch this movie as a single episode without the time-travel and it will blow your mind when you see what it is”.
• Matt confirms the the Drake news recording was used for the movie.
• The crew confirms that the time-tavel sequences from the past were not deep faked and actually repurposed from old outtakes of the webseries.
• Matt Johnson confirms that the movie will be released in theatres in Canada by Elevation Pictures.