Last week, I looked back at the Kickstarter craze that began when Rob Thomas successfully crowd-funded a Veronica Mars movie in 2013. It seemed at that time that this might be a viable option to save cancelled TV shows, or at least get a movie that could wrap up some storylines. Immediately, quite a number of sci fi TV shows were mentioned as the possible focus of a new campaign, but after a year or so, nothing substantial emerged, and energy around crowd-funding cancelled shows seemed to die out. Here’s a look at some of the shows considered at the time and whether it was possible anything really could happen with them.
Could Have Happened
These three properties had key figures from the original shows involved and passionate fanbases that almost certainly would have contributed to any crowd-funding effort. Had everything come together, it’s possible that a Kickstarter campaign could have generated a movie and possibly more.
Chuck (NBC, 2007-12, Ended After Five Seasons)
After the Veronica Mars campaign proved successful, Zach Levi almost immediately started tweeting the possibility of a movie and actively engaged in talks with the studio and the other parties that would need to come together to make it happen. A Chuck movie could possibly have been done on the $5.7 Million that Rob Thomas has raised for his film and for almost certainly less than $10 million. That show has a very passionate fanbase, and even the higher amount was within the realm of possibility for a crowd-funding campaign. Plus, the series had only ended the prior year so the stars did not have too much in the way of obstacles to keep them from coming together. And the series was owned by Warner Bros., the same studio that also held the rights for Veronica Mars. But for whatever reason, this never did happen. Perhaps the studio execs felt like the series ended on the right note (its final season had been announced in advance), or perhaps they did not want to start a trend of their properties getting revived by crowd-funding. But despite the push from Zach Levi, a Chuck movie never did happen.
Pushing Daisies (ABC, 2007-09, Cancelled After Two Seasons)
Just like Zach Levi, Bryan Fuller took immediate notice of what was going on with the Veronica Mars campaign and showed enthusiasm for doing the same sort of thing with his beloved, truncated series Pushing Daisies. He had already been exploring ways to continue it since ABC axed it back in 2009 which included a movie, a graphic novel, and possibly even a jump to Broadway. And he had started working on a script for a movie before the whole Kickstarter thing flared up. The biggest obstacle for this one, though, was the finances. Fuller has said that a Pushing Daisies movie would run somewhere between $10 and $15 million, which would have likely been a stretch for a Kickstarter campaign. If he could have worked out a deal to raise partial funding and then the studio would foot the rest of the bill, perhaps it could have happened. But this was yet another Warner Bros. property, and apparently a deal was never worked out. Fuller was also quite busy working on the first season of NBC’s Hannibal TV series at that time. So the hoped-for Pushing Daisies movie never did emerge from the Kickstarter craze.
Wonderfalls (FOX, 2004, Cancelled After Half a Season)
The other Bryan Fuller fan-favorite was second on his list of priorities of Kickstarter projects, but would probably have been more doable money-wise than Pushing Daisies. A Wonderfalls movie could be done on a budget similar to what has been raised for Veronica Mars thus far, and almost certainly within the $5 to $10 million range. But that show had already been off the air for over eight years at that point, and there may not have been as much passion for a revival. Plus, Fuller’s commitments to Hannibal and his preference for doing a Pushing Daisies movie kept this one on the backburner.
No Chance for Revival
These three properties definitely had the passionate fanbase, and they were mentioned as possibilities for a crowd-funding revival. But they lacked a key figure from the original production as a driving the initiative and cost would have definitely been an issue as well.
Firefly (FOX, 2002, Cancelled After One a Season)
As soon as word started to spread about the success of the Veronica Mars campaign, the Browncoat faithful immediately kicked into high alert mode. But Joss Whedon quickly went to work downplaying the possibility that Firefly would soon be moving forward with a Kickstarter funded movie. He was committed to Marvel at that time and Nathan Fillion was busy with Castle. Whedon also pointed out that a Firefly movie would cost considerably more than what Rob Thomas pulled in for Veronica Mars (the Serenity feature film cost $39 million). He did express that he would love to revisit the series and bring the old gang back together, but he did not believe that crowd-funding would make it happen.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX, 2008-09, Cancelled After Two Seasons)
Fanatic followers of this show also immediately perked up after the Veronica Mars campaign succeeded, but series creator Josh Friedman had to step in and temper expectations. He took to Twitter saying that a Kickstarter revival is “HIGHLY unlikely” (his emphasis) due to “rights situation, budget necessities, motivation of corporate entities”. The studio already had plans for the franchise to return to the big screen and had no interest in a crowd-funded revival of the cancelled series, even if it was just a one-off movie to wrap up storylines.
Jericho (CBS, 2006-08, Cancelled After Two Seasons)
There were some rumblings about a Jericho movie, but nothing much came from that. It would been expensive to produce a reunion movie, and series stars Skeet Ulrich and Lennie James had other commitments at that time. Plus, there were talks to potentially bring the show back on Netflix at the time, though nothing ever came from that. Fans definitely would have been willing to kick in the money, but there was no driving force for a crowd-funding revival
The One That Did Happen
After a couple of years, the Kickstarter craze that began with Rob Thomas’ Veronica Mars movie had mostly died down. But then another creative force turned to crowd-funding and managed to revive his much-beloved series.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Comedy Central/Sci Fi, 1989-1999, Cancelled After Ten Seasons)
Joel Hodgson had regained the rights to the comedy-riffing series MST3K, and in 2015 started a Kickstarter campaign to raise $2 million to produce three new episodes. This was met with a very enthusiastic response from fans, and he ended up raising over $6 million which allowed him to produce a total of fourteen episodes. Netflix picked up distribution of the revival and went on to fund one more season. So Hodgson proved that crowd-funding can still work to revive a show if all the right pieces are in place. In this case, he owned the rights and it was an inexpensive show to produce.
In the next post, I look at how crowd-funding still has the potential to revive (or launch) sci ti TV shows as well as what the future holds for this initiative.
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