{"id":3908,"date":"2013-03-29T08:45:35","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T15:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/?p=3908"},"modified":"2016-05-16T19:01:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T02:01:48","slug":"the-catch-22-of-crowd-funding-veronica-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/the-catch-22-of-crowd-funding-veronica-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Catch-22 of Crowd-Funding &#8220;Veronica Mars&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3951\" alt=\"veronica-mars\" src=\"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/veronica-mars.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Veronica Mars: The Movie,&#8221; a star-studded revival venture on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/559914737\/the-veronica-mars-movie-project\">Kickstarter,<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0decided to raise $2,000,000 within 30 days. It found fans that same day who gave it more, a record-setting for such crowd-funding. Now with 13 days remaining, it&#8217;s raised over $4,165,000 with the backing of 62,395 fans and counting. What does this mean for the future of studio-backed ventures into film and television either on hiatus or too risky to fund through normal avenues?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Putting your money where your mouth is. With &#8220;Veronica Mars: The Movie,&#8221; a major studio (Warner Bros.) is experimenting with production fundraising, rather than shelving a project they find risky.<\/li>\n<li>Involving fans in something they like. While other fans of cancelled shows sent letters hoping to rekindle content (e.g. Arrested Development, Firefly, plus many other live action TV shows <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/ScrewedByTheNetwork\/LiveActionTV\">&#8220;screwed by the network,&#8221;<\/a> notes tvtropes.org), here&#8217;s an opportunity to try something new.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Neutral<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Paying to play. Incentivicing high ticket rewards tailored to actors bypasses the casting process.<\/li>\n<li>Contributing 9% to Kickstarter. In trade for going with the name brand of crowd-funding, the web company takes a hefty portion of the pot, well over the cost of expenses. Writing Warner Bros. a check would have raised the production more money.<\/li>\n<li>Delivering audiences exactly what they want might be great for pocketbooks, but it seems creativity can be stifled. The filmmakers might not be as adventurous because they&#8217;ve crowd-sourced a specifice idea with pre-established expectations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Setting a bad precedent. On Kickstarter&#8217;s own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/blog\/a-big-day-for-fans\">blog post<\/a>, one commenter nailed it perfectly: &#8220;Warner Bros could have easily funded this the traditional way. Instead, they get the fans to cover the budget, get free PR from the fans&#8217; actions, keep the distribution rights and get nothing but sweet profit with a home video release where they can easily get fans, who paid $35 for a digital download, to double dip. I hope you all enjoy the future of billion dollar corporations passing all the risk off onto the people while keeping all of the $$$ benefits of doing business.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Now creating investors who only get a signed poster or the like. If the project does really well, the investors get nary a financial gain. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/thr-esq\/dangers-veronica-mars-kickstarter-victory-431267\">THR<\/a> has an article on the dangers this $4-million-plus effort has created.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What are your thoughts on this all?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Veronica Mars: The Movie,&#8221; a star-studded revival venture on Kickstarter,\u00c2\u00a0decided to raise $2,000,000 within 30 days. It found fans that same day who gave it more, a record-setting for such crowd-funding. Now with 13 days remaining, it&#8217;s raised over $4,165,000 with the backing of 62,395 fans and counting. What does this mean for the future [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-general","category-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6103,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3908\/revisions\/6103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}