Regardless of a triumphant world premiere at Cannes final Could, the politically unsparing Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice was caught in cinematic limbo. Distributors had snapped up rights in Canada, Japan, Germany, and several other different nations, however after a cease-and-desist letter from Trump himself, home distributors opted to pass. Missing any higher choices to advertise the film and show public demand, The Apprentice staff turned to Kickstarter.
The filmmakers’ campaign hit its $100,000 goal in simply 12 hours—and finally raised 4 instances that quantity. (The marketing campaign finally quadrupled it.) That grassroots assist not solely funded advertising and screening alternatives, it raised the film’s profile, serving to it secure stateside distribution. The Apprentice went on to earn Oscar nods in February for stars Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Robust. It additionally proved how the general public’s religion in a inventive mission can counterbalance Hollywood’s threat aversion—particularly when Kickstarter is concerned.
“The Apprentice marketing campaign is a strong instance of how creators—even these with established platforms—are utilizing Kickstarter not simply to fund tasks, however to safe company over their work and forge extra direct connections with their viewers,” says Taylor Ok. Shaw, senior outreach lead of Kickstarter’s movie division.
The main crowdfunding platform for inventive tasks, Kickstarter has helped lots of of hundreds of creators increase a complete of over $8.6 billion since its 2009 launch. It’s additionally proved to be a vital useful resource for budding artists, a few of whom have gone on to do main Hollywood movies. (Administrators Jeremy Saulnier and David F. Sandberg, for example, each used the platform earlier than making the Netflix hit Rebel Ridge and the superhero blockbuster Shazam, respectively.) Kickstarter tasks have additionally collectively netted 19 Oscar nominations—together with The Apprentice’s two—and 4 wins.
And now, in a post-pandemic, post-Double Strike panorama, during which main studios are reassessing their budgets and productions are down 40% from 2022, creators of all types are beginning to see Kickstarter as an important technique of assist.
That marks a significant shift in the best way creators view the platform. There was a time when crowdfunding instruments like Kickstarter have been primarily seen as a approach for creators to get tasks off the bottom, not maintain careers. Administrators Zach Braff and Rob Thomas received backlash when they used Kickstarter to fund their completely different tasks in 2013, with some claiming they’d exploited their own fans’ loyalties with a purpose to skirt typical funding challenges.
Whereas crowdfunding a Marvel film stays inconceivable in 2025—comedian e book films at the moment are among the many solely remaining movies to nonetheless reliably obtain studio backing—large shifts within the leisure trade have since flipped the script round other forms of tasks. Within the age of streaming wars and fragmenting viewership, when some studios would relatively ditch completed films for a tax write-off than presumably see them underperform, the challenges creators now face in making ardour tasks are too typically insurmountable.
“Most filmmakers, each rising and established, are being instructed that there’s little to no funding accessible for his or her authentic concepts,” says Shaw, who works instantly with creators to form their Kickstarter campaigns. “They go from pitching everybody they know and getting a lot of no’s, to having to determine in the event that they wish to create their movie independently or not. Kickstarter is the place they go after they can’t look forward to a greenlight.”
However it’s not simply the trade that has modified over the previous decade—audiences’ perceptions of crowdfunding have advanced, too. Followers who perceive the mechanics of Hollywood usually tend to view crowdfunding as a professional path for tasks of any pedigree, and appear to grasp that many creators are turning to their communities for assist out of necessity—not comfort.
In accordance with Shaw, the tasks more than likely to get funded on Kickstarter aren’t essentially these with ultra-topical plotlines or with massive names like Sebastian Stan connected. Slightly, it’s these with a transparent imaginative and prescient and a direct line to an engaged viewers.
Creators with locked-in fan bases, like the hosts of Dungeons & Dragons podcast Critical Role, for example, can handily deliver an present group to a Kickstarter marketing campaign, as these hosts did with their TV collection The Legend of Vox Machina, which raised over $11 million and finally landed a distribution cope with Amazon Prime. (The present not too long ago concluded its third season.)
As for what kind of movie and TV tasks can be getting funded on Kickstarter sooner or later, the platform is doubling down on a handful of genres in 2025.
“We’ve seen particularly robust engagement round animation, horror and thriller, brief movies and comedy, the place fan bases are extremely passionate and communities round these tasks are typically particularly energetic,” Shaw says. “As a result of these classes have already got robust traction, we’re leaning in with extra centered outreach and assist to assist these creators take full benefit of the momentum that exists.”
Within the meantime, the platform can also be supporting all creators who use it by persevering with to evolve its arsenal of instruments for planning and selling campaigns and interesting backers. Most not too long ago, Kickstarter rolled out an built-in set of pledge management tools that streamline the logistical processes creators undergo after efficiently funding tasks—like gathering backer data, providing add-ons, and transport out rewards—all instantly by way of the Kickstarter platform.
The corporate additionally simply launched a brand new function referred to as Pledge Over Time, which provides backers the choice to separate their pledge into 4 equal funds. Most Kickstarter campaigns supply completely different rewards for various sizes of contribution, and this newest function permits cash-strapped followers to entry higher-tier rewards for the tasks they most wish to see on this planet.
By serving to to offer what creators want and what followers need, at a risky time in Hollywood, Kickstarter has emerged as a welcoming oasis of greenlights for creators of all stripes. As gatekeepers grow to be more and more reluctant to fund tasks exterior of well-established mental properties, the platform is redistributing the appropriate to determine whether or not or not the present should go on.
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