I don’t know much about studio financing models, but I do know they weren’t working for Veronica Mars. For years, the cast, fans and producers had wanted to turn our old TV show — on which I played a quippy teen detective — into a movie. But Warner Bros. would not give us the money to make it happen.
So executive producer Rob Thomas and I turned to Perry Chen’s incredible crowdfunding website, Kickstarter. The setup was fun and simple. In exchange for their pledges, we’d give fans personal prizes — a digital copy of the movie for $35, a video message from me for $600 and so on. We needed $2 million to make the movie. We wound up raising $5.7 million from more than 90,000 backers.
There’s something so smart and magical about that idea — connecting consumers with creators and letting them vote with their own money. I haven’t met Perry yet, but I look forward to it so I can thank him for his brain.
Bell stars in Showtime’s House of Lies