Kickstarter used to fund Veronica Mars movie

Crowd-funding site Kickstarter.com has been used to fund a number of small, artsy projects.

Now it's being used to fund a movie of the US TV series Veronica Mars, a Nancy Drew-ish effort starring Kristen Bell. Bell is onboard for the movie, as is producer Rob Thomas, who organised the Kickstarter campaign.

Admittedly, it's a micro-budget by Hollywood standards, but the $US2 million goal was hit was within 10 hours and it quickly spilled over.

Pledge options run from $US10 all the way up to $US10,000, with rewards running from the likes of a T-shirt and digital copy of the movie to one of the stars following you on Twitter for a year; one of the stars recording your voice mail message; the right to name a character; a walk on part and a speaking part.

As I type it's at $US3.5 million with 27 days to go - it seems like it's going to go a lot higher to fund a modest movie, or at least provide a good base for more conventional investors to build on (Warner Bros is producing).

ABOVE: The Kickstar campaign's video pitch.

Hitting its mark so quickly indicates there's strong demand from the fans - and perhaps a lot more potential for crowd-funding by fans in general. 

Chalk up another threat to the old-school movie industry.

Speaking of Kickstarter, we've already seen some good strategic use of the service by Kiwi director Taika Waititi (who used it to fund US distribution and marketing for Boy), and South Island entrepreneurs Syrp, who've crowded-funding their motion-capture camera gadget through to commercial launch (yes, Kickstarter is for US citizens only at this point, due to it use of a US-only Amazon.com service for escrow and payment - but it's easy to get around this limitation with the help of a friendly local).

It's the nature of start-ups that many will always fail. And any new commercial platform attracts its share of wideboys and gormless wannabees. So Kickstarter is guaranteed a steady stream of bad press. 

But it will also continue to deliver a steady flow of success stories. The internet has delivered a new way of funding new business. Good stuff. 

Follow @ChrisKeall

ckeall@nbr.co.nz