While the world’s media agencies have been tuned to the Vatican for news on the papal conclave, my social media feeds – Twitter, especially – have been filled with news of the Veronica Mars Movie project on Kickstarter.
Less than half a day after the project was announced, funding for the film has reached more than $1.5 million (with 30 more days to go to reach their initial $2 million funding goal). Judging from Rob Thomas’s (Veronica Mars’s creator) and Kristen Bell’s (Veronica Mars herself) tweets, they were surprised by fans’ reaction and enormous support for the project. That a cult show that averaged about 2.5 million viewers, which was cancelled in 2007, could still amass such speedy response to a call for action to make a film. Talk about the power of crowdfunding, or more specifically in this case, fan-funding.
I’ve been reading a lot of op-eds, and listening to a lot of Twitter conversations, on the case for and against this particular project. One school of thought seems to question why Thomas and Bell do not just fund the project themselves, as the belief appears to be that since they’re “Hollywood types”, forking out $2 million shouldn’t be too difficult. While I don’t claim to know the inside workings of the Hollywood film and television industry, that may be too simplified a view. Warner Bros owns the rights to the show, and it is only with their approval, as Thomas writes in the Kickstarter rationale, that he and Bell launches the campaign on Kickstarter. Furthermore, Entertainment Weekly reports that Warner Bros Digital Distribution has agreed to foot marketing, promotional and distribution costs if the project manages to reach its $2 million goal in 30 days. So, to me, it sounds more likely that Kickstarter is used as a platform by Warner Bros to gauge fan interest in a potential product that they claim (as Thomas reported) does not warrant a studio-sized movie.
This also brings to light some people’s uneasiness and concern that money raised through this Kickstarter project is not going towards an indie project, but instead towards a studio film that Warner Bros is essentially too cheap to finance. It obviously brings up question of fan labour and the monetisation of fans, which big conglomerates (such as the Disney-backed Fanlib years ago) have been trying to tap into. And it’s precisely why this post is being written.
While I think it’s a valid point to bring up the issue of fan labour (or investment in this case?), and whether the success of this funding campaign [1] might prompt other media conglomerates to start seeking funding for other ventures this way, we must not forget at the very core of this, is the fans. EW is currently running a poll asking fans which other TV series they would fund for a film, while X-Files fans are asking if 20th Century Fox is paying attention to this campaign, and if a similar thing can be done to get a 3rd film green-lighted. Ultimately, fans choose to fund this project, and this is the voice that’s missing in some of the concerns raised; that somehow fans need to be educated that they’re financing a studio film, so they’re not actually doing anything for the so-called greater good. But, as Jason Mittell rightly argues in a tweet, fans funding this project is no different than pre-ordering merchandise such as DVDs or going to conventions to relive favourite moments of a beloved show. Just as, I’m sure, buying a cinema ticket and helping films like The Hobbit or The Avengers break box office records is a film fan’s indirect investment towards New Line and Marvel’s next projects.
Frustratingly, fan agency always gets left out in arguments which purports concern that fans are being duped by studios and networks. Perhaps, rather than assuming that fans are being duped into donating towards a studio film, thought should be given to implications the success of this campaign might bring to Hollywood’s system; or more importantly, the power fans can wield if they decide a Veronica Mars movie is deserving to be made.
And yes, as a fan of Veronica Mars, I would proudly declare that I donated to the campaign, and if the perks offered were not bounded by geography, I would have contributed more.
[1] As I write this, funding for the project has reached over $2 million.
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