OMG Scott! I personally LOVED Veronica Mars and watched every episode! I would be one of those crazies 'hurrah!ing on the sidelines if a movie gets made! That being said, the 'how' and 'what' and 'where' of it requires a probably more complicated response, which my befuddled brain will properly gather up once the excitement dies down. To think this show almost got cancelled in its first season, too!

I'm not a professional writer, so I can only really comment from a fan's perspective. It is critical that studios treat fans equitably in these types of arrangements. In this case, the $35 donation level is the lowest that actually lets you see the movie. I think $10 should include an HD digital copy of the movie on projects like this. If studios want to give fans a chance to bring their favorite show back for a wrap-up, great. As long as they don't get into a habit of shifting the risk generally placed upon actual investors onto fans (meaning full refunds if the project falls through for any reason). This makes it sort of a pre-order system, with the option of paying more for bigger bonuses. It was a fascinating day to watch, that's for sure. I tend to share the uneasiness expressed by several screenwriters on twitter, though there were plenty that were more optimistic. Let's hope whatever changes come about are good for both fans and writers.

Speaking not with my writer's hat on, but as someone who's been dealing with Silicon Valley VCs for over 20 years, imho, this is going to change the movie business in a profound way as the industry continues to evolve into more of a venture business that funds virtual corporations making features. As a studio exec, you're going to take a long look at the fact that a group of people were able to prove interest in their property and generate "seed money" for a movie project, and consequently be more inclined to fund a movie on that basis. It's a very powerful and common risk mitigation strategy in the VC world. The downside is that makers may be forced more often to have some skin in the game and ante up this seed money before a movie gets made. OTOH, that would serve to weed out many less commercial projects in favor of "smart programming". For moviemakers a pool of cash means that you have the ability to wait for the best deal available, in terms of budget and gross points. $3 million funds a decent indie style movie, but the $30 million that money could induce from a studio funds a major theatrical release. It also means that ownership rights for a property need to be managed more carefully when dealing with TV and movie studios, since the life of that property has significant innate value down the road. As writers and agents become more aware of that fact, we might start seeing scripts being licensed rather than being sold outright to studios the way movie rights for a book like Harry Potter are. How easy that's going to be will actually depend on local and state corporate law and the ease with which a corporation intended for producing a movie can be created and disassembled. It could force many low cost productions out of California. Now, it's also important to note that while not every project has the visibility or cache of a Veronica Mars movie (although I could imagine a Firefly project generate close to $10 million this way), it does show that with the right script and "business development" effort that intelligently targets the right audience, a filmmaker's destiny is more in their own hands than it's ever been. It's the closest thing to a guarantee that exists in this business and it might be the single most exciting thing to come out of all this.

Thanks, pliny, for that. I keep looking at it from the perspective of the writer-studio relationship and I can't help but think this could become an albatross around writers' necks, yet another hurdle projects will have to clear before getting a green light. Let's say the writer has gone through the traditional process of script development to the studio's satisfaction. Then they say, "Great, now go prove to us this has legs by raising $2M for the project on Kickstarter." If it's an original screenplay, you can't very publish the script online, so it comes down some sort of treatment or synopsis, and whatever snazzy marketing you can do on the Kickstarter site itself. So yet ANOTHER skill set writers need to master. If it's an original story or one not based on a preexisting title, how can one expect to cut through the media noise to garner attention to generate the funds? What if the studio says essentially, "Hey, if the story concept is all that great, it should make a connection with a potential audience." Maybe this adds a whole new wrinkle to packaging: writer and team have to get talent attached in order to position the project to generate sufficient funds. What if this becomes a default mode of business, a majority of original projects needing to generate seed money to prove its potential. Wouldn't that reduce the number of take-chance movies and increase the number of safe bets, films the masses want to see? I could be completely wrong. Hell, Spielberg thought videocassettes would kill movie theaters, so if HE was wrong, surely I can, too. But as I noted in the OP, there is a track record with movie studios going WAAAAAY back where they have benefited hugely on the backs of writers, some times with a total lack of good faith. So I think at the very least, writers need to look at this cautiously. BTW I understand John August and Craig Mazin intend to take up the subject, perhaps as soon as their next podcast. I think we all will be most interested to hear what they have to say.

Scott, don't get me wrong... I think that for some writers, the process *will* become more difficult, there's no doubt about that. The transition from spec scripts to spec movies is going to be jarring for many, but it does mean that instead of spending time convincing a studio exec (and that process needs all those skills you mentioned), one would be dealing with a group of friendly people investing small amounts of money. And clearly, as evidenced by Veronica Mars, while established talent will have the advantage they always have, what I think kickstarter fundamentally does is improve the odds for people not working within the existing studio system and extend the life of properties that have already been through the mill. As many spec projects will need seed money before approaching a studio, the writer will be given the choice between making an indie scale picture or a theatrical scale movie. The power of no is now back in the writer's hands. Consequently, if a studio buys a script, they will continue to take on the burden of funding it. That won't change, imho. If they don't, more power remains in the writer's hands, or what we actually mean: a more even co-operative of writer/producer/director/talent. I think that's key... you have to be a project that's nearly ready to start shooting for this funding model to work. Remember the industry already works something like this in the indie space. Festivals like Sundance, Toronto & Austin Film/SXSW are major marketplaces for features seeking distribution, i.e. spec movies. However, distribution's the big question for which I don't have an good answer yet, although Red State and Passion of the Christ both managed to make decent money outside the usual channels, and Vimeo & Youtube today both announced creator initiatives for online distribution that could be game changers. As for this kind of funding making it harder for more take-chance movies to be made, I don't think the landscape changes that much if one looks how these movies are already funded i.e friends & family, tax write-offs, etc... If you're someone like Billy Bob Thornton, and you want to make a personal, small scale movie, kickstarter offers a way forward. In fact, I think certain kinds of movies, such as "ethnic" movies shot in the US, which would never be funded by a studio, now become fundamentally easier to make, because all you need to do is appeal to specific funding demographics. And instead of a young Kevin Smith maxing out his credit cards, he has a place to go. When it's all said and done if a filmmaker can get funded they can make a film. Which leads to a point that I didn't make strongly enough earlier: while a writer will need to learn business skills, a kickstarter type funding model inherently makes the production of a successful movie more profitable for the writer. Why? Because the writer now becomes a principal/founder in the virtual corporation established to produce the movie, and the financial part of this process, including the accounting, will be out of the studio's hands. 20% of the profits will now mean exactly that.

btw, just saw this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/turnstyle/the-veronica-mars-kicksta_b_2879715.html

From the fans' POV, surely they're being asked to pay twice - once to get the movie made (quite substantial amounts in some cases) and then to actually see the movie? Of course, all Kickstarter projects have this flaw - but there's a difference between chucking $20 to a new film-maker with a promising indie project, and giving your money to a vast studio that makes millions in profit every year... As for what it means for the future of film: surely the problem is that audiences don't know what they want until they get it? No one knew that Slumdog Millionaire or The Artist would be major international hits. If the studios had run them through Kickstarter to test the waters, would they ever have been made? If you start in effect focus-grouping every project. only the blandest, lowest-common-denominator projects will ever get made...

Pliny, thanks again for your thoughts. I totally agree about Kickstarter funding indie type movies. In fact, that was very much the spirit with which KS was started, as I understand it. Of course, financing a movie is one of only 6 aspects of creating a potentially profitable and, therefore, sustainable product [I have a post coming up today about a new initiative by Vimeo that touches on this]. My concern is not about indie films. KS for that, great. Again my yellow flag is KS being incorporated into the way the Hollywood studios and even financiers operate. Perhaps all that happens is a bunch of cult fave TV series like "Pushing Daisies" or "Serenity" get kickstarted into movies. Great. But I can't help but think the studios will look at this as yet another way (A) minimizing costs and, thus, maximizing profit, and as a result (B) making the filmmakers' task of getting a movie ACTUALLY produced - hard enough as it is - even more difficult by insisting that the writers bring x amount of self-funded dollars to the table as part of any green light package.

Debbie, both of those points are relevant to the discussion. Your first one I saw almost immediately on Twitter when the VMKS initiative went live: "Why is Warner Bros. asking consumers to self-fund a studio movie project? Isn't that supposed to be the studio's responsibility?" Maybe this starts a paradigm shift. One for the better? For the studios, certainly. For consumers? Not so sure. Your second point I touched on, but you articulated in a much more powerful way by asking if this DOES become the new paradigm, would we EVER see movies like Slumdog or Artist? Sure, most of the financing for those films came from international backing, outside the Hollywood system. But what about a movie like Looper? To me, that was one of the most exciting movies to get released in 2012 because it was a SMART genre film, something I'd love to see more of. Who knew a movie like that would find the audience it did, both domestically and internationally (currently at $166M on a reported $30M budget)? If the studios or financiers had a new system in place whereby the next Looper-type project came along, insisting the filmmakers raise $2-4M in KS self-funding before committing to make the movie, would enough consumers see that KS campaign, let alone 'get' the project from whatever type of visually enhanced treatment or abridged scriptment to reach that threshold? I doubt it.

I'm just relieved that a multi-billion dollar corporation like Warner Brothers can use fans to raise the money to make a product that they then can sell back to the fans. Do the fans own the copyright? No. And where does a studio actually make all it's money? Off the home video, rentals, fess - the copyright! Yep. This is perfect for the studio business model. It screws nearly everyone while looking like a sweet drink of water. It's a mirage.