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Firstly, I think setting out to raise a few million dollars can be considered a burden. At the very least, it's a pretty big challenge. Isn't he asking his fans to help him meet that challenge?
Secondly, I didn't criticize Spike in any of my posts. In fact, in my first post in here I said "Cool, but shitty it has to come to this." I laud him, I hope he gets his doe, and I hope his movie turns out good. I also said I was probably going to throw him a few bucks. (The signed Malcolm X poster sounds cool, but not sure I can afford to drop $150 on it...)
My criticism was of the state of the industry that apparently won't fund small budgets for visionary filmmakers but has no problem spending hundreds of millions on hack-helmed bullshit all summer, every summer.
To me, the ideal scenario still is, financier provides money, Spike delivers the goods, we all go see it, profits result, everybody wins.
This model raises some questions for me. What if zillionaires like Tom Cruise or Will Smith attempted to make a mid-budget movie via crowd-funding. Or what if a middle-of-the-road director (box office-wise), like, god forbid, Quentin Tarantino, tried to go this route.
Do we really want US, the fans, to be responsible for raising money for films we want to see?
In theory, if Zack Braff raises $3M and his film then recoups the budget in box office receipts, do the donors get to recoup their money? I doubt it, but why shouldn't they? Why should Braff ride off into the sunset with all of his profits? Why should he get all the reward when he didn't have to assume any of the risk?
I hate to put a cold "dollars and cents" spin on it when it's supposed to be all about the art and whatnot, but this whole conversation is about money, so it is what it is.
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