Pledge to Fan-Finance a Sequel

POSTED BY: Lindsay
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 16:05
VIEWED: 21815
PAGE 3 of 4

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE

LINDSAY

Monday, October 5, 2009 1:15 PM

The thing is, I'm not asking anyone to donate any money right now. The website doesn't ask you to put up a dime. I'm just looking to prove that there is interest in financing a sequel. If there is proven interest, then Universal can take up the task of collecting the money. And it would be just like buying any other product. If you buy a DVD off Amazon and never get your DVD, then you get your money back. Here, you are paying for both the movie and the DVD - so if you don't get a movie and DVD, you don't pay. While I am a lawyer, I would count on the infrastructure that Universal already has to work out those details - the biggest hurdle being a computer program to charge people money without losing a huge percentage to the makers of the program you are using. In the meantime, all I want to do is guage people's interest. If the Firefly community really doesn't want this, then there's no point in going further.

SIGMANUNKI

Monday, October 5, 2009 10:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Lindsay:

the biggest hurdle being a computer program to charge people money without losing a huge percentage to the makers of the program you are using.

Yah, let's ignore that whole investment rights/profits/etc thing. That'll work out really well.

Seriously, if you don't get that even if it is just about pre-orders and nothing else, that there's more to it than just a computer program, then I don't know what to tell you. And there's a lot more to "your" idea than that. A lot more.

----
I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

MIKEDINMD

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 12:49 AM

NCBROWNCOAT Thank you for mentioning the film.

LINDSAY

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 1:19 PM

I think there's a lot of opposition because people are misinterpreting my proposal. First, I am not asking anyone to donate money now. All I want to do is guage interest - interest that I believe really exists. There are more than 175,000 Firefly fans on Facebook alone. Serenity DVD sales in its first week of release have been estimated between 1.104 and 1.605 million copies. If just a third of those people are willing to pay $50, then that represents fan-financing of $20 million toward the production of a sequel - not enough to pay for the entire thing, but definitely enough to make the studio think HARD about turning down the money. And $20 million before production even begins is worth a lot more than $20 million once everything is done. This would be sales of a product before the product is produced - maybe a stretch for some who question the quality of the movie, but if Joss Whedon is involved, I am willing to put my faith in him to create a worthy movie. And because all fans are buying is a product, they do not have any rights to profits - like I don't get anything from Nike other than the sneakers I buy.

Again, the most important thing to note here is that all we are doing is trying to find out if people are INTERESTED. And feedback to improve the plan is much appreciated.

MAIII

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 4:16 PM

I think this is do able. I invested in a film called Natalie Queen of Scots. they sold shares via Paypal and with a legal contract that the share was used for production and if the movie got sold we got investment back and then some. you might want to check out how he set things up legally, paypal etc. granted he was only looking for $250,000. though word of mouth he raised $25,000+ in just the first 24 hrs.

http://www.wehavetofindaway.com/

LINDSAY

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 4:19 PM

The problem with using paypal is that they take such a big percentage of what you bring in. That's why the first stage is to guage interest. There is no point in even trying something like this if not enough people would be willing to do it. I really thought more people would be interested - especially when all I am looking for now is interest, not an investment.

MAIII

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 4:31 PM

I am not sure what sort of deal NQoS worked out with paypal, I think they were cool with not taking a big fee(isn't there no fee if it is friend to friend?). they did raise the necessary $100k to cover all their production/filming. I agree first step is to gauge the interest and then go from there with whatever legal and financial collection system that works.

ECGORDON

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 5:46 PM

Lindsay, all I can tell you now is that if you set up a website and have a way for people to log on and say they would contribute X amount of dollars, then I will do just that. What the majority of us have been saying is that things like this have been tried before and they didn't get very far, so we were trying to soften the blow for you in case you have to abandon the idea.

I very much want to see either a new theatrical feature and/or more episodes of a revived Firefly, even if it is just direct-to-dvd or online only. I don't think this is the way to get them, but I'll eat those words if you prove me wrong.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

ZEEK

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 7:49 PM

$50 for a DVD? I really doubt you'll get 40,000 people to do that. I doubt you'll get word of mouth to 40,000 people. I doubt even 10% of them will take the time to visit your site.

You'd need backing from Joss to get any real attention. Just some website somewhere is not going to get the word out. Don't get your hopes up.

SIGMANUNKI

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:30 AM

To answer your question that you PM'd me regarding why I think that this is a bad idea I'll quote my first post in this thread:

"""
I don't have the time to go over the details. Search the archives for the many reasons why this is a bad idea and won't work:

http://fireflyfans.orthogonalspace.ca/
"""

I other words, stop being lazy and go find why it won't work yourself. Btw, this should have been done BEFORE you posted this idea in the first place. Or do you think it's that original?

EDIT: If you don't get just how little support this idea has by just the response in this thread, then I don't know what to tell you.

----
I am on The Original List (twice). We are The Forsaken and we aim to burn!
"We don't fear the reaper"

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE