When I caught The Big Lebowski on its opening weekend in 1998, the theater was less than half full. The people who were there, by my read of their reaction, mostly hated it. The Coen Brothers' hotly anticipated follow-up to their Oscar-winning film Fargo, The Big Lebowski was certainly a left turn, but as unique and special as it seemed to me, in this age of opening weekend grosses counting for more than what's on the screen, I left the theater assuming I'd never hear from The Dude, Walter, Donnie, or The Jesus again.

Boy, was I wrong.

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In the nearly 20 years since that late-winter weekend, The Big Lebowski has attained cult status beyond all reason. Even casual fans can quote from the film—if sometimes unwittingly—and even the most incidental characters that Joel and Ethan Coen concocted to populate the film have legions of fans. Of course there's also Lebowski Fest, which just celebrated its 16th anniversary in Louisville, Kentucky, where it originated. There have also been 10 star-studded Los Angeles Lebowski Fests, and it returns to New York City this weekend—where there was a full cast reunion in 2011—for the first time since 2015, which will include an outdoor screening at Lincoln Center tonight and a bowling party in Times Square tomorrow.

But how did this fandom for the Coens' film become a multi-city celebration? Will Russell, Lebowski Fest's founder, explains its origins.

"We had this terrible band, and after practice we'd sit around quoting lines from The Big Lebowski," Russell tells me. "We realized we were spending more time quoting the film than actually playing music. A little while later, I went with one of the guys in the band to a tattoo convention, where he had a booth. We were bored and quoting lines from the movie, and pretty soon the guys in the booth next to us had joined in. We realized we were not alone in our love for The Big Lebowski."

In that moment, Russell says, inspiration struck.

"The tattoo convention was really weird—there were people suspended [in the air] from their ass piercings and all sorts of other strange things going on—and it occurred to us, if they can have this weird tattoo convention there's no reason we can't have a Big Lebowski convention."

Courtesy of Lebowski Fest

Russell and his friends rented a run-down bowling alley in Louisville's "shady side of town" owned by a local Baptist church. They figured whoever showed up could watch the film, dress up in costumes, drink White Russians—the Dude's drink of choice—and bowl. What they didn't count on was the chord the idea immediately struck.

"We barely advertised," Russell says, still clearly shocked at the Lebowski Fest's immediate success. "We figured 20 of our friends might show up. Much to our surprise, 150 people showed up. We couldn't believe it!"

The following year they picked a bigger bowling alley—"We knew we'd have a bigger crowd, and we couldn't deal with the church's 'no cussing' and 'no drinking' signs plastered around the bowling alley we used the first year," Russell says—and the gamble paid off. Spin magazine mentioned the Fest alongside Lollapalooza as one of the summer's not-to-be-missed events, and 1,200 fans—or "Achievers," as they're known, a nod to the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers mentioned in the film—showed up.

In the years that followed, Lebowski Fest exploded. While the yearly events in Kentucky continued, and it eventually expanded to events in 15 cities in total, the L.A. and New York City Fests became star-studded affairs that drew the biggest crowds. Nearly every member of the cast have turned up, from the Dude himself Jeff Bridges—who has even donned his original wardrobe and performed with his band the Abiders for the occasion—to John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, and John Turturro. The supporting cast has made appearances as well, right down to Karl Hungus himself Peter Stormare, Phillip Moon (better known as Woo the carpet pisser), and Jack Kehler (Marty, the Dude's landlord). In fact, Russell says, only Sam Elliott, the wizened cowboy from the bowling alley bar, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, one of the kidnapping nihilists, are hold-outs.

Jeff Bridges performs with the Abiders at Lebowski Fest at Wiltern Theatre on April 25, 2014 in Los Angeles, California Michael Tullberg Getty Images

"We love having actors from the film, but the real focus of Lebowski Fest is on the fans," says Russell, who nonetheless hints that a few surprises are in store for the New York celebration this weekend. "The Achievers in their costumes are the real stars. That's what's so special about it: Instead of going to a big concert where thousands of people are staring at four or five people playing music on the stage—or even Comic Con, where the focus is these all-star panels and movie previews—at Lebowski Fest, everybody engages with each other. People are in costume, and strangers will come up to them and want to have their picture taken with them. Everyone is just there to celebrate this movie that we love so much, and there's this real nice kind of bonding and spirit of community. At the end of the day, it's just a really great party, where you can bowl and drink White Russians, and listen to Creedence—and your troubles are over, dude."

Remarkably, the success of Lebowski Fest also spawned , , and even an ill-fated theme park.

"Yeah, that was a big mistake," Russell, who struggles with bipolar disorder and attributes the theme park idea to his then-untreated mental health issues, says. "I was in a bad place and I got in over my head. It almost broke me, but fortunately the Fest survived." (As a result, subsequent fests, including this year's New York event, raise money and awareness for the National Alliance of Mental Illness.)

Ultimately, though, even after some bumpy years in the aftermath of the theme park debacle, Russell says that Lebowski Fest has become bigger than anything he ever could have conceived of back at the tattoo convention more than 15 years ago, and it's a legacy he's proud to have had a part in.

"Lebowski Fest was a pretty unlikely success," he says with a chuckle as we wrap up. "Nobody would have dreamed we'd be talking 15 years later about doing it at Lincoln Center. It's pretty far out. I'm kind of in a state of perpetual amazement about Lebowski Fest. It's just this miracle of a thing."

Jeff Slate Jeff Slate is a New York City-based songwriter and journalist who has contributed music and culture articles to Esquire since 2013.

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