In 11 hours the Veronica Mars movie project on Kickstarter met its goal of $2 million and still has 29 days to go. As of this writing they are currently at $2,797,864 and quickly rising. Though this project was proposed by show creator Rob Thomas with the support of Kristen Bell and the entire cast, Warner Bros. retains the rights to the show and will handle marketing and distribution.
Though it may seem insignificant, this has the potential to change how studios fund many of their films and is a big win for the concept of crowd-funding. What isn’t clear at this point is if this will have a positive or negative effect on the industry as a whole. Do to the massive and immediate success of this campaign, it’s almost a sure thing that the big dogs will be looking into this more in the future for projects they aren’t entirely sure of. But if the studios become more involved in crowd-funding will it take money away from the independent filmmakers that simply can’t afford to fund their movies otherwise? Or maybe this will have a positive impact and expose more casual viewers to some projects they may not have been aware of before.
It seems like the studios that already have the money to produce a film shouldn’t really be asking for handouts from the movie-going public, but then again, it seems like in the case of this movie, it wasn’t going to get made unless someone other than Warners came up with the cash.
I’m afraid that this will start a very slippery slope with studios creating more projects like this simply to bring any risk to zero and maximize profits exponentially. It could also result in saturating the market and causing the smaller projects to not receive as much exposure or funding as they would normally. One thing is for sure, now that they see the milk, they will probably suck it dry.
What do you think? Will Veronica Mars help or hinder crowd-funding? Comment below.
