So a lot of excitement has been going on the last couple of months with Kickstarter. I was only minimally aware of Kickstarter before the big announcement that Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell had launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a Veronica Mars movie (something we've been hoping for since finishing the series this past year.) I can proudly say that we contributed to their campaign and canNOT wait for the movie.
Immediately on the heels of VM's success, Melissa Joan Hart launched a Kickstarter of her own. She was looking for funding for a movie she wanted to star in, to give her a chance at a lead role in a romantic comedy, something mainstream studios don't seem willing to do. The premise of the movie sounded okay, but I feared this was only the beginning of this sort of thing.
Also shortly after the news of the success Veronica Mars had on Kickstarter, Zach Braff launched his own campaign. His was to fund a movie he'd written, plans to direct and star in. He's calling it his "follow up to Garden State" (not to be confused with a sequel to Garden State, which it is not.) He talked about his decision to go to Kickstarter to partially fund his film in an effort to maintain creative control over things like casting, locations and editting.As of today, two out of three of these Kickstarter campaigns have been successful. All three started out with the same initial goal ($2 million dollars) - Veronica Mars DEMOLISHED their goal (raising $5.7 million I believe) and Zach Braff comfortably reached his goal within only a few days and still has a few days to go. Melissa Joan Hart's project closed early having only raised $51K of her desired $2 million.
People are getting all up in arms about celebrities using Kickstarter to fund their projects. They claim that these people should just use their own money and they are taking advantage of their fans and it is going to get out of hand with celebrities trying to raise money this way. By looking at these 3 projects, I can clearly say that fans will not fund just ANY celebrity project.
The reason Veronica Mars was SO successful is because A.) That show is AWESOME (seriously, if you haven't watched it, you should!) and B.) Fans have been wanting more for years and years. There's been talk of a movie pretty much since the show ended and fans have always been on board with the idea, unfortunately the studio didn't believe there was enough interest and wouldn't fund it. Years later, WB gave Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell the chance to prove how interested people still were and if the Kickstarter was successful WB agreed to distribute the movie. Fans turned out in droves to support this project because we love Veronica Mars and want MORE! By showing how much we wanted more we are (hopefully) proving to the studio that any future Veronica Mars projects would be well worth the investment!
Now with Zach Braff, yes he had a very successful run on Scrubs and he made a wildly amazing movie called Garden State. People assume this means he will be able to anything he wants in Hollywood, but sadly this is not the case. So while people have also been wanting more from Zach Braff since Garden State, he hasn't had the opportunity to make another film since then. Studios are not beating down the doors to fund artsy, independent films because frankly they are not huge money makers. Sure there's the occasional blockbuster, but those are few and far between. So while they may be quality films, studios care about their return. So the type of film we've been waiting for Zach Braff to make isn't necessarily going to draw a lot of attention from studios. And if there was one interested in financing the film, they would want to play it safe and cast "profitable" actors and have a lot of say in the final product. With a passion project, like this one sounds to be for Zach, those can be really hard concessions to make. So he turned to his faithful fan base to help him fund the film, so he could make it the way he wanted. Kickstarter will not be the only source of funding for this project, he will be putting in a considerable amount of his own money (and already has) plus the money they get from selling the foreign distribution rights around the world.
Now, Melissa Joan Hart's project was a bit of a gamble. The whole premise of the campaign was that the studios won't cast her as the lead in a romantic comedy so lets do it without them. The problem? People who loved her on Clarissa or Sabrina don't necessarily need a movie to get "more" from Melissa Joan Hart... if they want more, they can watch Melissa & Joey. In the pitch she evens asks us to"take a chance on me" - not exactly a great selling point!
So, to sum up, people are going to fund projects they are excited about and believe in. They aren't going to donate to something just because they kind of like that actor or musician. We know what we're going to get from a Veronica Mars movie, because we know and love those characters and want MORE! We know what to expect from a movie written and directed by Zach Braff because we've seen and loved Garden State and we want MORE! Some movie we've never heard of from an actor/actress we only moderately like... I'll pass. At the end of the day, maybe Veronica Mars or Zach Braff aren't for you... but you can't tell me there isn't some show or some musician or actor you would DIE to have another project from? Because I think we all have someone or something like that!
Sorry this turned into such a rant, I really didn't mean to go on and on, just lots of thoughts I wanted to get out on the topic. Here's a link to a great interview with Zach Braff on this topic as well, if you're interested:
http://mashable.com/2013/05/08/zach-braff-interview/
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