financing season two

POSTED BY: Alfred
UPDATED: Friday, January 23, 2004 20:13
VIEWED: 10758
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ALFRED

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 4:15 PM

Forgive me if I'm repeating what's already been said.

As nice as a movie sounds, I would prefer another season. That said, why not sell shares in a company who's sole purpose is to produce season two?

Ethan Hawke is trying to do something similar with his next movie. Here's the company he's working with: http://www.civiliancapital.com/

Another example to consider is the bond issue that David Bowie did against royalties from his catalog.

What I'm proposing is that company X is established and shares are sold. Maybe $100 per share. If we reach the dollar amount to produce another season (I'm estimating $60M) then we get season two and the profits are distributed to shareholders. The company would be treated as a producer on the show and be compensated accordingly. If we fall short of the required dollar amount, all monies are returned to shareholders minus some administrative fee.

At worst, this is like any other high risk investment and at best, we end up with a second season and maybe even a decent return (although I would settle for the show). At the end of some set time (release date plus one year), the company is disbanded and all future profits go to Mutant Enemy (or some charity). A new company would be formed for each additional season.

Please provide feedback and poke holes in this idea. Does anyone know how we could present this suggestion to Mutant Enemy?

Thanks for listening.

Alfred

BROWNCOAT1

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 4:44 PM

I think this is an interesting idea, though I have some obvious reservations. Who would this company be and how would they collect the money? It is apparent they would have to collect the bulk of the money from fans and sponsors willing to take a chance on a show that "failed" once. I have no idea of the actual number of fans, but in order to come up w/ your figure of 60 million, 600,000 shares would have to be sold. I doubt the fanbase is anywhere near that. Even if everyone bought say three shares each, that means you still need to sell to 200,000 people.

Though this is a good idea, it seems to me that it would be a logistical nightmare.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

GOATUS

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 4:59 PM

and if no network is willing to buy the show there is no chance of having a return on your investment.. so good luck :P

MRGREEN

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by goatus:
and if no network is willing to buy the show there is no chance of having a return on your investment.. so good luck :P

That's obviously just not true. If that were the case, Universal wouldn't be even considering a movie at this point.

Now, I think the idea has merit, but it just needs to aim a little lower. Raising $60m is an almost insurmountable objective.

What would be slightly more realistic (but difficult none the less) would be to try and raise money not for a second season, but for the end of the first season. By my count, 9 more episodes would have made a regular season one. Lets round down a bit, even it out, and call it 8 more. That drops the goal to about $20 million. (A bit under $2million per episode, plus about $5million to get the sets back up, etc).

At $100 per share, a purchase within the means of almost anyone, that gives us only 200,000 shares to sell. Not that far flung.

Distrobution of the show would be a 2 DVD set, which could be sold at production/shipping costs to share holders (one set per share?) and at a reasonable markup to the general public.

Further, to actually make some money on these, I can see selling ad space on the discs. You could EASILY have 5 30 second spots per disc. One at the start of the disc, before the menu, and then one before each episode. Annoying? Yes. Profitable? Absolutely.

You can gaurantee the advertiser that at least 200,000 pairs of eyes would watch it (stock holdsers DVD sets), and if we could ever get some solid DVD Box set sales numbers for the original 13 from Fox, we would have a pretty good idea how many others would be buying the new episodes. Not alot of people by TV standards, but a more dedicated audience, and also an infinate number of impressions, since the ad would be on the discs permanantly.

Something similar to this was batted around when the show was originally canceled, but I think it didn;t get off the ground due to ME wanted to pitch the show to some other Nets and such.

I think the idea has some merit, and could succeed, but it's almost TOO grass roots for anyone to be willing to give it a try.

Sorry this was so long, I was eating lunch, and got carried away =p

Rob

If you can't run, you crawl, and if you can't crawl, well, if you can't do that, you find someone to carry you.

RIZZ

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:55 PM

I'd buy 2-5 shares... only 199,995 to go...!

KURUKAMI

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:55 PM

That seems reasonable, but personally I think the individual shares should be a bit less than $100. Perhaps $25/share? That way, even the less-well-off among us browncoats could afford to invest in the completion of the first season. Also, in addition to the potential to purchase the DVD set for the base costs, perhaps those who held a certain amount of shares would be entitled to nifty extras.

Copies of the press kit, maybe?

Firefly-themed apparel?

I just find myself thinking of all those old PBS fund-raising drives. The more you contribute to the goal, the more benefit you might reap. I certainly can't see the harm in offering someone who contributed more than, say, $300, an "official Firefly brown longcoat".

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

RIZZ

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:55 PM

I'd buy 5 shares... only 199,995 to go...!

MRGREEN

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 6:01 PM

Picking $100 was arbitray from the start of the post. Reason I stuck with it is because it makes the number of shares out there seem a little more managable!

Also, it would most likely take the better part of a year to raise that much money, and if you can't raise $100 in a year (less than $2 per week), well, you shouldn't be spending money on Firefly anyway!

Amother issue I didn't think of was taxes. If a company were raising this money, it'd certinly be taxable. Have to sell another 20,000 shares to payoff Uncle Sam. Then again, with Bush in office, if we were outsource our receptionist/order taker to India we could qualify for all kinds of tax breaks, and then they'd practically be paying US to make the show!

Rob

If you can't run, you crawl, and if you can't crawl, well, if you can't do that, you find someone to carry you.

ALFRED

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 6:10 PM

Thanks for expanding on the idea. I think selling ad space is a brilliant idea.

My expectation is that the episodes would go out on dvd. ANy network pickup would be gravy.

Alfred

JAYSEDAI

Wednesday, January 21, 2004 6:23 PM

This is not unlike my Direct to DVD idea:

http://www.fireflymovie.com/directdvd.html

I've already gathered over 2000 names of interested subscribers.

However, from what I understand, your numbers are high. The 15 episodes (11.25 hours) of Firefly cost Fox somewhere in the neighborhood of $30-35 million, that includes the 8-10 million spent building the sets and creating the Pilot. What I would propose is not so much an entire season, but rather a series of mini-series, perhaps 8-12 episodes long. Not unlike an HBO season. Then it could be shopped around to various networks, as a finished product, or sold direct via DVD.

So the biggest hurdle (not counting intellectual property, and lawyers), would be re-building the sets. However, if Universal builds the set's for us, we would just need to strike a deal with them to allow us to continue using them. I'm not sure I could deal with having Serenity ripped apart a second time.

Jeremy

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