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Huzzah!
With 38 hours remaining in its campaign, Felicia Day’s “The Guild” reunion movie has broken the record for highest crowdfunded movie in history, which was set by the “Veronica Mars” film project with $5,702,153
in 2013.
As of Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET, Day’s “The Guild: Ren Faire’d” hit $5,704,000 raised by a combined 37,455 backers.
Critical Role’s “The Legend of Vox Machina” still holds record for biggest TV show Kickstarter, raising $11.39 million from 88,887 backers in 2019. After the campaign broke records, Amazon’s Prime Video picked up the animated series, and last year renewed it for a fifth and final season.
Created, written by, and starring Day, “The Guild: Ren Faire’d” will reunite the characters from Day’s popular web series “The Guild,” including Codex (Felicia Day), Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh), Vork (Jeff Lewis), Tink (Amy Okuda), Clara (Robin Thorsen), and Bladezz (Vincent Caso), who will continue their story in “the same independent, community-driven spirit that made the original series a defining part of online fandom and geek culture.”
“The Guild: Ren Faire’d” cast will also include Nathan Fillion, Misha Collins, and Wil Wheaton.
“Becoming the most-funded movie in Kickstarter history is completely surreal,” Day said in a statement. “We started this campaign because we wanted to prove there was still a way to make something weird and wonderful with the people who actually want to see it, instead of waiting for someone to give us permission. And once again, the Guildies showed up in a way I never could have imagined. I’m overwhelmed, incredibly grateful, and so incredibly pumped to go make the movie they deserve. But mostly grateful. As the community says, suck it suits!”
As Variety reported earlier this week, Day said “The Guild: Ren Faire’d” applied for and was denied a California tax credit, making the fundraising efforts even more impactful to the project.
“I’ve talked to many other productions who have not gotten it, and I can’t name people, but they had A-list stars in them,” Day said. “There was an A-list showrunner, the first round they were knocked out. Having learned that only 5% of the money goes to anything under $10 million, that category is extremely competitive.”
Day said the credit “should be automatic” for any projects under $10 million. Currently, 5% (or $37.5 million) of the California Film Commission’s allotted film and TV tax credit funds is earmarked for independent projects under $10 million and another 5% goes to independents above $10 million.
“That is the way you revitalize this industry, not hoarding all the money for a couple $500 million projects where A-list stars are benefiting and A-list producers and big studios are benefiting, and then indies just don’t have a chance to stay in L.A.,” Day said. “I don’t want to move to Atlanta for two months, so I’m going to have to rewrite my script to make it work here. And if I can’t, then we’ll have to do something. But the fact that it’s so difficult and the price difference is so much is very upsetting.”
