Q. What do you think of the VERONICA MARS movie Kickstarter campaign?I think, wow, there is a fan who is willing to pay $10,000 to put on a waiter uniform and say a line to Kristen Bell in a movie. There are fans who are willing to pay thousands of bucks to travel at their own expense to a movie set in order to be an extra.
I think, dang, Rob Thomas raised $2,000,000 in less than one day.
I think, how the hell are they going to make a VERONICA MARS movie for two million bucks? (Not that there is, intrinsically, any reason VERONICA MARS couldn't be made for the budget of BRICK.)
I think, it is très cool that the creator and the star got together and bravely put themselves out there to get this thing going. This could have blown up in their faces. Kudos. Rob and Kristen for the win.
I think, this is going to make things interesting. What if all those STAR TREK fans in 1969 had been able to do more than bombard the network with letters, but could have actually funded another season of their favorite show? What if Joss asked the Browncoats for the money to make another season of FIREFLY? Or if he and Eliza Dushku decided to go rogue and make their version of DOLLHOUSE where, you know, we got to see what she did with that whip?
HBO changed the rules for greenlighting a series. For HBO, it's not about how many people you can get to watch your show every Monday at 9 pm. It's about how many people are so unwilling to go without THE SOPRANOS that they will pay $15 a month to keep it on their TV.
If Rob Thomas pulls this off, then there's going to be more room for series that fans are rabid about. More X-FILES, more LOST, more BUFFY. Maybe there will be an AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER live action series for grownups. Who knows?
It encourages creators to go smart and edgy. If Thomas had dumbed down VERONICA MARS, 32,000 fans wouldn't have fronted their own cash for, basically, a chance to see a movie, and get some schwag that says you're a part of it.
I keep wondering about Kickstarter. We're putting together a dark little million dollar drama/thriller called ALICE IS PERFECTLY FINE NOW. We'll go to funders, sure, of course. But could we seriously raise some additional funds to make it bigger and better?
Of course, I'm not Rob Thomas or Joss Whedon. I can reach, say, a few thousand Faithful Readers. This is more a model for proven geniuses to leverage their fan base. Aaron Sorkin should be thinking about this. Chris Carter. Ron Moore.
(Jane Espenson, obviously, is thinking about this, but I don't want to see a sitcom farce from her, I want to see badass science fiction. I'm thinking, where are the Cylons? She's thinking, what can I shoot on $60,000 with two dudes?)
I think it's awesome.
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