Kickstarter is starting to get really, really powerful. It's funded tons of indie movies and even (perhaps regrettably) Lindsay Lohan-led The Canyons. Now it's funded one of its most mainstream projects yet. With the support of "Veronica Mars" star Kristen Bell and the blessing of Warner Bros.' digitaldivision, the TV show's writer and executive producer, Rob Thomas, created a Kickstarter campaign to get a feature-film version made--although the studio has the final word, of course. That was yesterday. Today, the campaign has earned over $2.6 million--I'd give the specific number, but it's rising by the second. Did I mention that the goal of $2 million was met within 11 hours, and there's 29 days left in the campaign?
Film Journal's written before about how independent movie theatres have been using Kickstarter to help finance digital conversions. But it's pretty amazing that a mainstream network television show is using this method. While it seems exceptional at first, there have been some prominent TV shows that have recruited fans to bring them back. The most famous early example was "Family Guy," and a new season of "Arrested Development" is coming to Netflix soon after years of speculation that the series would have a second run somewhere.
So much has been said about how social media has turned opening weekend into opening day. Word-of-mouth can destroy bad movies much quicker than they used to. As this Kickstarter campaign shows, it can also work in reverse. Good programs may be subject to cancellations by executives or declining ratings despite a rapt fan base. But those same fans can now actually have a say. In today's day-and-age, there's no way a cult show like "Twin Peaks" would be cancelled and gone forever. Here's to the Kickstarter campaign for "Veronica Mars," and fans having a vote in saying what movies will make them show up to theatres.
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