7 ms·

$2 Million for ‘Veronica Mars’ Breaks Kickstarter Records

114 points by waterlesscloud 14y ago

ComputerGuru 14y ago
TFA does not have a link to the Kickstarter project page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-m... Currently at $2,335,670 with 37,676 backers and 29 days to go. There are some really creative and interesting rewards for higher contributions. Personalized video message from the cast, personalized video message from Kristen Bell (much more expensive, obviously!), voicemail recordings, name a character after someone, have a local theatre rented out for a private showing possibly before the screenings, after-party tickets, be an extra, or even have a speaking role. I presume that ultimate reward means this movie is outside the purview of SAG-AFTRA, as any speaking roles in SAG productions absolutely, positively must be performed by SAG guild members. This is going to be an official Warner Brothers product, and I wasn't aware WB was not fully in bed with SAG-AFTRA. EDIT: What's up with Bell? She doesn't seem to understand the concept of Capital Letters aNd WHerE thEy bELONG In A Sentence. Or she's just being coy.
- vacri 14y ago
  The speaking role only ships to the US? Bah!
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  What I wonder about is if there are any SAG rules about paying for a role. Charging an audition fee is strictly verboten, for example.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    You just make the person a producer. I'msure something like this will result in a court fight, but SAG are going to look stupid trying to explain why they should be able to stop a picture being made in defiance of a willing cast and a prepaid audience.
- rdl 14y ago
  Can't they Taft-Hartley the speaking roles (paying a fine for using non-SAG performers, as is routinely done with commercials)? When I saw the $10k thing I was wondering if it included a SAG background performer voucher.
- VikingCoder 14y ago
  Why? They can just join SAG. "All new members pay a one-time-only initiation fee, plus the first semiannual dues at the time of joining. The national initiation fee rate is currently $3000.00 (initiation fees may be lower in some states). Annual Base dues are $198.00. In addition, work dues are calculated at 1.575 percent of covered earnings up to $500,000."
- kevinconroy 14y ago
  The Kickstarter page notes that some rewards require additional paperwork (presumably including becoming a member of SAG for the speaking role). Since only one (1) person claimed that reward, it seems reasonable that they could get them into SAG. Also, Bell may have just made a typo re: capital letters. If you are expecting perfect grammer from the internet, you'll cry yourself to sleep every night.
- Cushman 14y ago
  > What's up with Bell? She doesn't seem to understand the concept of Capital Letters aNd WHerE thEy bELONG In A Sentence. Or she's just being coy. Good question, actually. The only actual weird capitalization she used, "LoVe to you ALL", is actually an in-joke-- "LoVe" refers to Logan/Veronica shipping[0] in Veronica Mars fandom. She's maybe hinting at a possible romantic plot to the movie, maybe just playing around. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_(fandom) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_(fandom)
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  any speaking roles in SAG productions absolutely, positively must be performed by SAG guild members Under Taft-Hartley rules they can't exclude other people from participating as long as they join up.
- ars 14y ago
  I wonder if the posters are going to be individually signed, or printed that way. 7,000 signatures is a lot of signatures. The cast will probably be spending every free moment writing their names.
  - vacri 14y ago
    I was thinking the same thing - at five seconds per signature, you're looking at nearly 10 hours solid work per cast member that foolishly agrees.
    - omd 14y ago
      Make that 8 seconds per signature and they'll be working on it for 16 hours or 2 full working days. At $1.3 million per day I find that reasonable.
    - nasalgoat 14y ago
      I think you're over-estimating the time required. I've signed 1,000 art prints in less than an hour. You just need a system.
      - vacri 14y ago
        1000 prints in an hour is about 3.5 seconds per signature, not too far off my mark, and I imagine you'd need to take more fatigue breaks if you had to sign seven times as many prints.
  - paigalhaes 14y ago
    probably they will probably make stamps to stamp their names on posters :D
habosa 14y ago
Wow, some of the rewards people snatched up are incredible for a Kickstarter campaign. $10,000 for a speaking role? $1,000 to be an extra? I'm surprised people made that kind of purchase decision so quickly. This could be a whole new era of movie funding (not that Kickstarter hasn't already changed things significantly).
- niggler 14y ago
  "I'm surprised people made that kind of purchase decision so quickly." Is it really surprising? Wouldn't you pay 10K for a speaking role in Star Wars? I imagine there are many people who would pony up for the opportunity to have a speaking role in a movie (regardless of the movie), and certainly most hardcore fans of Veronica Mars would want a chance to be part of the movie.
  - habosa 14y ago
    Well Star Wars is now a cultural icon, so that's a decision I'd obviously make in hindsight. However we have no idea what this movie will be like or even if it will satisfy the fans. Also I wasn't surprised so much by the transaction of a speaking role for $10k as I was surprised that someone dropped that kind of money on Kickstarter and made the decision to do so within hours of the campaign's beginning. That's an intense impulse purchase.
    - booruguru 14y ago
      Veronica Mars already has a fan base. So hindsight isn't required. Fans are supporting this because they love it just as much as geeks love Star Wars.
- alanfalcon 14y ago
  The co-founder of XE.com (Alexa 500) doesn't have to think too hard before dropping ten dimes. He's not even a huge fan of the show (though he is a fan) and might not be able to play the role due to scheduling. http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/03/13/veronica-mars-movie-kickstarter-speaking-role/ http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/03/13/veronica-mars-movie-kickst...
hydralist 14y ago
who wants to back a kickstarter for the tv version of harry potter, game of thrones style. the way it was really meant to be!
- batiudrami 14y ago
  A Kickstarter campaign wouldn't come close to covering it. Your average cable TV drama costs upwards of $2M/episode, with Game of Thrones costing $4-$10 million/episode. Harry Potter has a big following, so it might make $10M all up - enough for a set and a pilot, maybe.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Something like this will happen, eventually. It'll start with a very high-profile pilot, though.
    - tdoggette 14y ago
      What if a person or company committed a significant investment to such a project, contingent on a crowdfunding push hitting certain thresholds?
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        A pilot is sort of that, actually. TV pilots are produced as one-offs (often independently financed) and then shopped around to networks as a way to obtain funding for a full season. So it's a small step from that to saying "We'll finance this show if you can produce a pilot on your own."
      - AdrianRossouw 14y ago
        pretty sure that's what's happening here. warner bros is covering the distribution and marketing.
  - VikingCoder 14y ago
    Why wouldn't it come close? 38 K people just raised $2 MM in 12 hours. I think you're thinking about this all wrong. I'd pay $10 to watch a new episode of Sherlock right now. Even if I have to wait 6 months for production. They can have $100, if I get 10 episodes. And if you can ONLY get episodes by paying for it, I think it'd scale.
mistermcgruff 14y ago
VM was one of those smart shows that died an early death, kindof like Arrested Development or Firefly. For the longest time fans of movies and TV have been able to buy DVDs, tickets to cons, posters, action figures, etc., but all of that is a proxy for what fans really want to buy: MORE CONTENT. Glad to see this working.
- purplelobster 14y ago
  I thought the first season was brilliant, but it couldn't keep it up.
  - aaron695 14y ago
    Agree. Brilliant first season. But it seemed to me some idiot somewhere who worked on the second season saw it had a strong female lead and thought that meant she should be a dick and wrote the later seasons like that. It amazes me how Hollywood just doesn't get strong female characters.
- 18pfsmt 14y ago
  Sorry for the off-topic/ pedantic, but since when has VM stood for Veronica Mars, and cons stood for conferences? To me VM == virtual machine, and cons==convicts. I realize context changes that, but I like browsing from the https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments section of HN, and I find it rude that many HNers feel the need to use common Reddit acronyms not found anywhere else. For people that find Vim shortcuts so simple, one cannot easily fathom the time savings is worth the confusion (however temporary).
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    To you cons = convicts, to the rest of the cons is a command line tool, which arguably is closer to the "HN" standard (whatever the fuck that means) than yours. I find it rude that you would choose to use such an irrelevant definition of "cons" on HN given the general subject matter of this forum. Just kidding - who gives a shit? The extra 0.5 seconds it took to parse the contextual meaning of an acronym I am not going to sweat, and I am certainly not going to call someone rude for daring to use a subculture-specific word in a way I would not normally.
thelibrarian 14y ago
It's even more impressive when you consider that this is effectively U.S. only, as they will not ship anything (apart from a digital copy of the script) to overseas backers.
- niggler 14y ago
  from the kickstarter: "The most common donation amount on Kickstarter is $25. Surely, 80,000 of our three million viewers would find that price-point viable!" I assume those viewers are predominantly US.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Why? Europeans, Japanese, Koreans etc would also find $25 perfectly viable.
    - niggler 14y ago
      I was replying to the remark: "It's even more impressive when you consider that this is effectively U.S. only" For a show with a 3M fan base, of which I would guess most are US based, its not hard to imagine that a few percent of those viewers (or their parents) would chip in $25
  - thelibrarian 14y ago
    True, my comment was more to the fact that all of the previous record setters (e.g. Torment: Numenera, Double Fine Adventure, Ouya, and Pebble) have been open world-wide, so this has had a much more limited potential backer population and still was a roaring success.
    - niggler 14y ago
      Were the country breakdowns released for those and other multi million dollar projects? I wonder whether those projects would have hit the 1M mark from just the US contributors
pasbesoin 14y ago
Given that Warner Brothers is behind this and still owns the property (per what I read, elsewhere), I'm not particularly in favor of this. They have plenty of money to "risk" and invest, and presumably will see the lion's share of any positive outcome of this initiative. If and as such, I'm not favorably inclined towards their using the mechanism to... mitigate risk (yet further), I guess. It takes away from projects that don't have a "sugar daddy" sitting in the wings. P.S. Or, even if it doesn't "take away" from other projects seeking funding, I'm... somehow still offended. Especially in light how how these same "big name" studios use severely restricted distribution options and other controls to screw over not only fans/customers but the shows that depend upon them. Warner Brothers using Kickstarter -- or, "forcing" their property to do so? It just stinks, to me.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  I'm mixed on it. I'd rather see micro-equity crowdfunding, but my understanding is the SEC still hasn't issued rules for that yet. Outside of that, making movies using other people's money is what studios do. It's the core of their very model. Isn't it better if it's from the fans than some ROI obsessed hedge fund?
  - pasbesoin 14y ago
    I think I know what you mean. I would, regardless of my comment and the circumstances I describe, probably kick in (or, have kicked in, were it then an option) for another season of "Firefly". I might be more in favor if the restrictions on the resulting product were loosened. As it is... I guess I kind of feel like the players you name are getting the fans to directly fund production, while still walking off with all the profit. And, regarding restrictions on the finished product... We'll see. But, I'm not optimistic. Prove me wrong, VM! :-)
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  You have to pick your battles. You can't reinvent hollywood overnight, but you can make incremental changes bit by bit. Sending a strong signal that fans will flock to smart TV shows helps if it gets more shows of that caliber made, even if the slimebags in hollywood profit from that too. And it also gives a signal to the legitimate indie creators out there that there's money available for people who can make shows that engage their fans strongly.
ghshephard 14y ago
I pray that Joss doesn't do something like this for firefly, because I'm worried about how in debt I would go to assist in funding a reunion of that series...
- kevinconroy 14y ago
  I'm not sure that he would go this route. Based on what he's said in interviews, I get the sense that although he loves the Firefly characters as much as us, he DID get a chance to make the movie (Serenity) to wrap it up. VM fans/Rob Thomas didn't get that chance, hence this Kickstarter. Also with the huge success of Avengers, Joss is going to be busy directing big budget sci-fi/fantasy/awesome movies for a while.
  - qohen 14y ago
    Joss is going to be busy directing big budget sci-fi/fantasy/awesome movies for a while. With low budget Shakespeare/awesome movies mixed in between, e.g. his just-released Much Ado About Nothing, briefly reviewed here (and the trailer's embedded): http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/03/08/173808228/joss-whedons-much-ado-about-nothing-gets-a-snazzy-teaser-trailer http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/03/08/173808228/joss... (Firefly fans: Nathan Fillion is in this one. As is Clark Gregg (aka Agent Coulson from The Avengers) and other actors from other Whedon projects).
- oracuk 14y ago
  I too would bankrupt myself over a firefly kickstarter.
- EnderMB 14y ago
  My biggest fear is that Community will get cancelled and that their fans will turn to Kickstarter in order to get Dan Harmon back on board to get their six seasons and a movie.
  - alanfalcon 14y ago
    He's stated clearly that he's out and done with Community, for the good of the show and his own mental health. And he's on to other projects. That's probably healthier than holding on to your baby, but then Harmon was treated like shit by the production company that owns the IP so it's not a similar situation to Veronica Mars. http://danharmon.tumblr.com/post/23339272200/hey-did-i-miss-anything http://danharmon.tumblr.com/post/23339272200/hey-did-i-miss-...
InclinedPlane 14y ago
The problem with creative content that is funded primarily by ad-revenue is that you break a key part of the feedback mechanism between creators and fans. Revenue becomes a matter of the intersection of lucrative demographics with eyeball counts. And because it's cheaper and easier to make content which merely titillates and draws attention such content tends to be what dominates. In a way it's surprising that anything of quality has been made under that system. Fortunately crowd funding helps reforge the link between fans and creators but it'll be a long, uphill battle before that sort of connection is the norm.
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
And there is the next step on the road to obscurity for the major distributors. Right now, WB sees it as a way to vet market interest, which is great for them. But in a few years, as the market optimizes around this, the actual people who make the movies will see less and less value from the studios. It is directly analogous to the writer/publisher world. It's not to say distributors won't exist, but the part they play will be significantly different.
ck2 14y ago
I loved the series and was angry when it was canceled but I am not sure I could get into a movie at this point, it's so far gone now?
alanfalcon 14y ago
Smart, entertaining show if you haven't seen it. Right now you can stream it online from thewb.com: http://www.thewb.com/shows/veronica-mars/ http://www.thewb.com/shows/veronica-mars/
hkmurakami 14y ago
This gives me hope that some day animation projects in Japan will be initiated by kickstarter-like platforms, resulting in profits going to the actual production studio / animators rather than the TV studios which don't do jack all for the creation of the shows. (animators in Japan typically make below minimum wage as a result of being paid per drawing, which in turn is a result of the tv stations taking an undeservedly huge cut of the revenues)
aidos 14y ago
I've never actually seen the show but there's obviously a strong cult following for it. The Kickstarter article is well written and there are some very interesting pledge rewards on the table. "You will get a speaking role in the movie. Here’s the scene — Veronica is eating with the man in her life. Things have gotten tense between them. You are the waiter/waitress. You approach the table, and you say, “Your check, sir.” We guarantee you will be on camera as you say the line. Unless you go all hammy and ruin the scene and we have to cut you out, but that would be a sad day for all of us. Just say the line. Don’t over-think it. You’re a waiter."
baby 14y ago
This just put a huge smile on my face (that should last a month). And then I read this : " This reward will ship to backers in the US only". Sadness sadness... I would have paid more if that meant I could have received anything for backing them up.
jpxxx 14y ago
Just to be sure, this is a marketing technique, not a method of funding a movie. The actual movie will cost around 20x more just to cover production, talent, editing, and distribution costs. Consider Kickstarter marketing that pays for itself.

114 points by waterlesscloud 14y ago

TFA does not have a link to the Kickstarter project page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-m... Currently at $2,335,670 with 37,676 backers and 29 days to go. There are some really creative and interesting rewards for higher contributions. Personalized video message from the cast, personalized video message from Kristen Bell (much more expensive, obviously!), voicemail recordings, name a character after someone, have a local theatre rented out for a private showing possibly before the screenings, after-party tickets, be an extra, or even have a speaking role. I presume that ultimate reward means this movie is outside the purview of SAG-AFTRA, as any speaking roles in SAG productions absolutely, positively must be performed by SAG guild members. This is going to be an official Warner Brothers product, and I wasn't aware WB was not fully in bed with SAG-AFTRA. EDIT: What's up with Bell? She doesn't seem to understand the concept of Capital Letters aNd WHerE thEy bELONG In A Sentence. Or she's just being coy.

vacri 14y ago
The speaking role only ships to the US? Bah!
waterlesscloud 14y ago
What I wonder about is if there are any SAG rules about paying for a role. Charging an audition fee is strictly verboten, for example.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  You just make the person a producer. I'msure something like this will result in a court fight, but SAG are going to look stupid trying to explain why they should be able to stop a picture being made in defiance of a willing cast and a prepaid audience.
rdl 14y ago
Can't they Taft-Hartley the speaking roles (paying a fine for using non-SAG performers, as is routinely done with commercials)? When I saw the $10k thing I was wondering if it included a SAG background performer voucher.
VikingCoder 14y ago
Why? They can just join SAG. "All new members pay a one-time-only initiation fee, plus the first semiannual dues at the time of joining. The national initiation fee rate is currently $3000.00 (initiation fees may be lower in some states). Annual Base dues are $198.00. In addition, work dues are calculated at 1.575 percent of covered earnings up to $500,000."
kevinconroy 14y ago
The Kickstarter page notes that some rewards require additional paperwork (presumably including becoming a member of SAG for the speaking role). Since only one (1) person claimed that reward, it seems reasonable that they could get them into SAG. Also, Bell may have just made a typo re: capital letters. If you are expecting perfect grammer from the internet, you'll cry yourself to sleep every night.
Cushman 14y ago
> What's up with Bell? She doesn't seem to understand the concept of Capital Letters aNd WHerE thEy bELONG In A Sentence. Or she's just being coy. Good question, actually. The only actual weird capitalization she used, "LoVe to you ALL", is actually an in-joke-- "LoVe" refers to Logan/Veronica shipping[0] in Veronica Mars fandom. She's maybe hinting at a possible romantic plot to the movie, maybe just playing around. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_(fandom) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_(fandom)
anigbrowl 14y ago
any speaking roles in SAG productions absolutely, positively must be performed by SAG guild members Under Taft-Hartley rules they can't exclude other people from participating as long as they join up.
ars 14y ago
I wonder if the posters are going to be individually signed, or printed that way. 7,000 signatures is a lot of signatures. The cast will probably be spending every free moment writing their names.
- vacri 14y ago
  I was thinking the same thing - at five seconds per signature, you're looking at nearly 10 hours solid work per cast member that foolishly agrees.
  - omd 14y ago
    Make that 8 seconds per signature and they'll be working on it for 16 hours or 2 full working days. At $1.3 million per day I find that reasonable.
  - nasalgoat 14y ago
    I think you're over-estimating the time required. I've signed 1,000 art prints in less than an hour. You just need a system.
    - vacri 14y ago
      1000 prints in an hour is about 3.5 seconds per signature, not too far off my mark, and I imagine you'd need to take more fatigue breaks if you had to sign seven times as many prints.
- paigalhaes 14y ago
  probably they will probably make stamps to stamp their names on posters :D

habosa 14y ago

Wow, some of the rewards people snatched up are incredible for a Kickstarter campaign. $10,000 for a speaking role? $1,000 to be an extra? I'm surprised people made that kind of purchase decision so quickly. This could be a whole new era of movie funding (not that Kickstarter hasn't already changed things significantly).

niggler 14y ago
"I'm surprised people made that kind of purchase decision so quickly." Is it really surprising? Wouldn't you pay 10K for a speaking role in Star Wars? I imagine there are many people who would pony up for the opportunity to have a speaking role in a movie (regardless of the movie), and certainly most hardcore fans of Veronica Mars would want a chance to be part of the movie.
- habosa 14y ago
  Well Star Wars is now a cultural icon, so that's a decision I'd obviously make in hindsight. However we have no idea what this movie will be like or even if it will satisfy the fans. Also I wasn't surprised so much by the transaction of a speaking role for $10k as I was surprised that someone dropped that kind of money on Kickstarter and made the decision to do so within hours of the campaign's beginning. That's an intense impulse purchase.
  - booruguru 14y ago
    Veronica Mars already has a fan base. So hindsight isn't required. Fans are supporting this because they love it just as much as geeks love Star Wars.
alanfalcon 14y ago
The co-founder of XE.com (Alexa 500) doesn't have to think too hard before dropping ten dimes. He's not even a huge fan of the show (though he is a fan) and might not be able to play the role due to scheduling. http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/03/13/veronica-mars-movie-kickstarter-speaking-role/ http://popwatch.ew.com/2013/03/13/veronica-mars-movie-kickst...

hydralist 14y ago

who wants to back a kickstarter for the tv version of harry potter, game of thrones style. the way it was really meant to be!

batiudrami 14y ago
A Kickstarter campaign wouldn't come close to covering it. Your average cable TV drama costs upwards of $2M/episode, with Game of Thrones costing $4-$10 million/episode. Harry Potter has a big following, so it might make $10M all up - enough for a set and a pilot, maybe.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Something like this will happen, eventually. It'll start with a very high-profile pilot, though.
  - tdoggette 14y ago
    What if a person or company committed a significant investment to such a project, contingent on a crowdfunding push hitting certain thresholds?
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      A pilot is sort of that, actually. TV pilots are produced as one-offs (often independently financed) and then shopped around to networks as a way to obtain funding for a full season. So it's a small step from that to saying "We'll finance this show if you can produce a pilot on your own."
    - AdrianRossouw 14y ago
      pretty sure that's what's happening here. warner bros is covering the distribution and marketing.
- VikingCoder 14y ago
  Why wouldn't it come close? 38 K people just raised $2 MM in 12 hours. I think you're thinking about this all wrong. I'd pay $10 to watch a new episode of Sherlock right now. Even if I have to wait 6 months for production. They can have $100, if I get 10 episodes. And if you can ONLY get episodes by paying for it, I think it'd scale.

mistermcgruff 14y ago

VM was one of those smart shows that died an early death, kindof like Arrested Development or Firefly. For the longest time fans of movies and TV have been able to buy DVDs, tickets to cons, posters, action figures, etc., but all of that is a proxy for what fans really want to buy: MORE CONTENT. Glad to see this working.

purplelobster 14y ago
I thought the first season was brilliant, but it couldn't keep it up.
- aaron695 14y ago
  Agree. Brilliant first season. But it seemed to me some idiot somewhere who worked on the second season saw it had a strong female lead and thought that meant she should be a dick and wrote the later seasons like that. It amazes me how Hollywood just doesn't get strong female characters.
18pfsmt 14y ago
Sorry for the off-topic/ pedantic, but since when has VM stood for Veronica Mars, and cons stood for conferences? To me VM == virtual machine, and cons==convicts. I realize context changes that, but I like browsing from the https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments section of HN, and I find it rude that many HNers feel the need to use common Reddit acronyms not found anywhere else. For people that find Vim shortcuts so simple, one cannot easily fathom the time savings is worth the confusion (however temporary).
- potatolicious 14y ago
  To you cons = convicts, to the rest of the cons is a command line tool, which arguably is closer to the "HN" standard (whatever the fuck that means) than yours. I find it rude that you would choose to use such an irrelevant definition of "cons" on HN given the general subject matter of this forum. Just kidding - who gives a shit? The extra 0.5 seconds it took to parse the contextual meaning of an acronym I am not going to sweat, and I am certainly not going to call someone rude for daring to use a subculture-specific word in a way I would not normally.

thelibrarian 14y ago

It's even more impressive when you consider that this is effectively U.S. only, as they will not ship anything (apart from a digital copy of the script) to overseas backers.

niggler 14y ago
from the kickstarter: "The most common donation amount on Kickstarter is $25. Surely, 80,000 of our three million viewers would find that price-point viable!" I assume those viewers are predominantly US.
- coldtea 14y ago
  Why? Europeans, Japanese, Koreans etc would also find $25 perfectly viable.
  - niggler 14y ago
    I was replying to the remark: "It's even more impressive when you consider that this is effectively U.S. only" For a show with a 3M fan base, of which I would guess most are US based, its not hard to imagine that a few percent of those viewers (or their parents) would chip in $25
- thelibrarian 14y ago
  True, my comment was more to the fact that all of the previous record setters (e.g. Torment: Numenera, Double Fine Adventure, Ouya, and Pebble) have been open world-wide, so this has had a much more limited potential backer population and still was a roaring success.
  - niggler 14y ago
    Were the country breakdowns released for those and other multi million dollar projects? I wonder whether those projects would have hit the 1M mark from just the US contributors

pasbesoin 14y ago

Given that Warner Brothers is behind this and still owns the property (per what I read, elsewhere), I'm not particularly in favor of this. They have plenty of money to "risk" and invest, and presumably will see the lion's share of any positive outcome of this initiative. If and as such, I'm not favorably inclined towards their using the mechanism to... mitigate risk (yet further), I guess. It takes away from projects that don't have a "sugar daddy" sitting in the wings. P.S. Or, even if it doesn't "take away" from other projects seeking funding, I'm... somehow still offended. Especially in light how how these same "big name" studios use severely restricted distribution options and other controls to screw over not only fans/customers but the shows that depend upon them. Warner Brothers using Kickstarter -- or, "forcing" their property to do so? It just stinks, to me.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
I'm mixed on it. I'd rather see micro-equity crowdfunding, but my understanding is the SEC still hasn't issued rules for that yet. Outside of that, making movies using other people's money is what studios do. It's the core of their very model. Isn't it better if it's from the fans than some ROI obsessed hedge fund?
- pasbesoin 14y ago
  I think I know what you mean. I would, regardless of my comment and the circumstances I describe, probably kick in (or, have kicked in, were it then an option) for another season of "Firefly". I might be more in favor if the restrictions on the resulting product were loosened. As it is... I guess I kind of feel like the players you name are getting the fans to directly fund production, while still walking off with all the profit. And, regarding restrictions on the finished product... We'll see. But, I'm not optimistic. Prove me wrong, VM! :-)
InclinedPlane 14y ago
You have to pick your battles. You can't reinvent hollywood overnight, but you can make incremental changes bit by bit. Sending a strong signal that fans will flock to smart TV shows helps if it gets more shows of that caliber made, even if the slimebags in hollywood profit from that too. And it also gives a signal to the legitimate indie creators out there that there's money available for people who can make shows that engage their fans strongly.

ghshephard 14y ago

I pray that Joss doesn't do something like this for firefly, because I'm worried about how in debt I would go to assist in funding a reunion of that series...

kevinconroy 14y ago
I'm not sure that he would go this route. Based on what he's said in interviews, I get the sense that although he loves the Firefly characters as much as us, he DID get a chance to make the movie (Serenity) to wrap it up. VM fans/Rob Thomas didn't get that chance, hence this Kickstarter. Also with the huge success of Avengers, Joss is going to be busy directing big budget sci-fi/fantasy/awesome movies for a while.
- qohen 14y ago
  Joss is going to be busy directing big budget sci-fi/fantasy/awesome movies for a while. With low budget Shakespeare/awesome movies mixed in between, e.g. his just-released Much Ado About Nothing, briefly reviewed here (and the trailer's embedded): http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/03/08/173808228/joss-whedons-much-ado-about-nothing-gets-a-snazzy-teaser-trailer http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/03/08/173808228/joss... (Firefly fans: Nathan Fillion is in this one. As is Clark Gregg (aka Agent Coulson from The Avengers) and other actors from other Whedon projects).
oracuk 14y ago
I too would bankrupt myself over a firefly kickstarter.
EnderMB 14y ago
My biggest fear is that Community will get cancelled and that their fans will turn to Kickstarter in order to get Dan Harmon back on board to get their six seasons and a movie.
- alanfalcon 14y ago
  He's stated clearly that he's out and done with Community, for the good of the show and his own mental health. And he's on to other projects. That's probably healthier than holding on to your baby, but then Harmon was treated like shit by the production company that owns the IP so it's not a similar situation to Veronica Mars. http://danharmon.tumblr.com/post/23339272200/hey-did-i-miss-anything http://danharmon.tumblr.com/post/23339272200/hey-did-i-miss-...

InclinedPlane 14y ago

The problem with creative content that is funded primarily by ad-revenue is that you break a key part of the feedback mechanism between creators and fans. Revenue becomes a matter of the intersection of lucrative demographics with eyeball counts. And because it's cheaper and easier to make content which merely titillates and draws attention such content tends to be what dominates. In a way it's surprising that anything of quality has been made under that system. Fortunately crowd funding helps reforge the link between fans and creators but it'll be a long, uphill battle before that sort of connection is the norm.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

And there is the next step on the road to obscurity for the major distributors. Right now, WB sees it as a way to vet market interest, which is great for them. But in a few years, as the market optimizes around this, the actual people who make the movies will see less and less value from the studios. It is directly analogous to the writer/publisher world. It's not to say distributors won't exist, but the part they play will be significantly different.

ck2 14y ago

I loved the series and was angry when it was canceled but I am not sure I could get into a movie at this point, it's so far gone now?

alanfalcon 14y ago

Smart, entertaining show if you haven't seen it. Right now you can stream it online from thewb.com: http://www.thewb.com/shows/veronica-mars/ http://www.thewb.com/shows/veronica-mars/

hkmurakami 14y ago

This gives me hope that some day animation projects in Japan will be initiated by kickstarter-like platforms, resulting in profits going to the actual production studio / animators rather than the TV studios which don't do jack all for the creation of the shows. (animators in Japan typically make below minimum wage as a result of being paid per drawing, which in turn is a result of the tv stations taking an undeservedly huge cut of the revenues)

aidos 14y ago

I've never actually seen the show but there's obviously a strong cult following for it. The Kickstarter article is well written and there are some very interesting pledge rewards on the table. "You will get a speaking role in the movie. Here’s the scene — Veronica is eating with the man in her life. Things have gotten tense between them. You are the waiter/waitress. You approach the table, and you say, “Your check, sir.” We guarantee you will be on camera as you say the line. Unless you go all hammy and ruin the scene and we have to cut you out, but that would be a sad day for all of us. Just say the line. Don’t over-think it. You’re a waiter."

baby 14y ago

This just put a huge smile on my face (that should last a month). And then I read this : " This reward will ship to backers in the US only". Sadness sadness... I would have paid more if that meant I could have received anything for backing them up.

jpxxx 14y ago

Just to be sure, this is a marketing technique, not a method of funding a movie. The actual movie will cost around 20x more just to cover production, talent, editing, and distribution costs. Consider Kickstarter marketing that pays for itself.