Kickstarters for movies good/bad?

[Supernova]

After veronica mars and now super troopers being funded by fans do you think this practice is good or bad in hollywood. I think its bad because it screams "we dont know if this will work and dont want to loose our money".

 

[Alien Anal]

if its millionaires asking for money then yes its bad but if not its fine by me

 

[Boy Scout]

What he said.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I feel like you're making the fans pay twice for a movie.

I'm also worried that Hollywood will exploit this trend and demand fans pay to greenlight projects they were going to greenlight anyway.

But for projects truly stuck in development hell that fans desperately want to see, why not use a kickstarter?

 

[Greens]

If people want to spend their money on these things, why not? Nobody's forcing you.

 

[weezerspider]

Kickstarter is great for independent cinema. Blue Ruin is the perfect example of what Kickstarter should be for the film industry. However, already established filmmakers using Kickstarter is a little eh. Studios using it would be horrible, but it's mainly used for independent cinema and that truly is a gift from God for independent filmmakers.

 

[writer0327]

I see no problem with it either. If people want to see a project get made and personally want to contribute to it, why not?

 

[Lencho01]

It depends.

 

[Matt Mortem]

For indies it's essential. For millionaires with decent careers going for them there's always a way to fund a film without resorting to crowd funding. Hell, Kevin Smith got funding to make an insane film like Tusk without having to do a kickstarter or indie go-go.

 

[Octoberist]

It depends.

I'm with the 'it depends' category.

I think a 'Veronica Mars' movie couldn't happen without Kickstarter. It's truly a capitalistic way of 'putting money where the mouth is', bypassing the politics of Hollywood. It shows 'hey people are wiling to donate to see this movie'.

Of course, it doesn't work for everything. I think the projects with Spike Lee and Zach Braff were completely exploitive and disastrous. BUT..a movie like Blue Ruin gets benefited. Or even Super Troopers 2.

 

[Lencho01]

I'm with the 'it depends' category.

I think a 'Veronica Mars' movie couldn't happen without Kickstarter. It's truly a capitalistic way of 'putting money where the mouth is', bypassing the politics of Hollywood. It shows 'hey people are wiling to donate to see this movie'.

Of course, it doesn't work for everything. I think the projects with Spike Lee and Zach Braff were completely exploitive and disastrous. BUT..a movie like Blue Ruin gets benefited. Or even Super Troopers 2.

I'm fine with something like VMars. It's just really fans paying for something they wanted years ago that the major studios just weren't going to support and they were fine with providing the money. They got what they wanted.

Braff is crazy rich. I know he's got the money to make films himself. Lee's rich too, but I'm not sure if Lee's film counts as being exploitative since as he tells it, it's just the same thing he's done in the past, but just adding the internet component of asking people to help fund his film.

Though, it does bring to question that if a film isn't critically and/or financially successful, does it mean the people were exploited?

 

[Octoberist]

That movie of his was a disaster. It made no money at the box office or on home video, and it got panned.

But people KNOW what they got themselves into when they donate into anything on kickstarter. That's just the nature of it; there's always a risk that it may not be successful.

 

[Lencho01]

Well, that pretty much makes it like any other film in the regular Hollywood system.

 

[jmc]

To me Kickstarter and it's advantages/disadvantages is always going to vary from project to project. Veronica Mars was something fans wanted and were willing to pay for it. There's debate about whether WB should have footed the bill but at the end of the day no-one was forced to do anything. For the most part everyone was satisfied, WB got some good publicity at very little cost, and fans finally got to see their favourite character again - it was win/win. Zach Braff doing a Kickstarter for a movie I also really don't have a problem with, even though it's easy to say he should have invested his own money I'm more than will to bet he would have put a decent amount of his own cash down on this despite getting $2M in funding. I think the thing to remember is the concept of crowd funding is still very much in its infancy, I don't think we'll know exactly whether it's a good or bad thing for a good 10 years or so.