What Super Troopers 2, Stormy Daniels, and the World's Largest Jock Strap Have in Common
Super Troopers 2 and Stormy Daniels have at least two things in common. They’ve both been fantasized about for years and they’ve both raised money through crowdfunding. Super Troopers 2 raised $4.8 million to help get the movie made. And Stormy Daniels has raised money for her legal bills. People with limited imaginations have given more than $350,000 to help her break a contract so she can tell them what having sex with Donald Trump is really like.
I’d heard about for crowd funding for years, but I was pretty much half listening. Now this hustle has got my attention. I had no idea crowd funding is used to get strangers to pay for literally anything— vacations, weddings, $50,000 worth of potato salad, cosplay photo shoots in exotic locations—so yeah, literally anything.
Sometimes crowdfunding produces cool sounding things a large number of people want like 3D printing pens, virtual reality, and Super Troopers 2, which grossed $14.7 million in two days—$1.2 million more than it cost to make.
Other times crowdfunding is used for things like trying to get people to play Magic: The Gathering. But what if there is no gathering? Can one guy play Magic by himself?
You can do run a crowdfunding campaign on websites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo or a bunch of other platforms. Good ideas may get zilch while a project like making the world’s jock strap may get the $850 it needs. But this may not be completely random. Experts say it helps if you put in the work by creating videos, tweets, and other things to make people believe you have a soul (whether or not you actually do). But if you can afford to go big, you should hire a professional to manage your campaign for you. Super Troopers 2 raised the second most crowdfunding cash for a movie. #1 is Veronica Mars. And the Super Troopers 2 and Veronica Mars campaigns were both run by a guy named Ivan Askwith. I just heard of him but am guessing he will rule the world soon.
One of the things you’ve got to do to achieve Askwith level success is to offer incentives to your contributors. Super Troopers 2 offered rewards a speaking role for $10,000, a squad car used in the move for $35,000 (it sold), and for the price of just $25,000, you could have the movie’s stars as groomsmen at your wedding. There was pretty a reasonable sounding $250 price tag to get to hang with Broken LIzard at Beer Fest. Which is even more reasonable if they pay for just one Das Boot.
But it’s unreasonable stuff from the crowdfunding world that would make three great movie plots. Keep reading, Ivan Askwith.
1) Recipe for Anarchy is a thriller about an anarchist who takes a famous samurai’s name as his nom de douche. He sets ups a way for people to anonymously contribute bitcoins to create bounties on world leaders. Son of Samurai doesn’t he doesn’t do the assassinating—a little weird for a fake samurai—and instead hitmen can decide if they want to try to collect. If so, they have to send an encrypted message prior to the murder with the date that the leader will die and blah blah (don’t worry— we’ll clean this shit up in the screenplay) blah. Anarchist dude’s theory is that if enough politicians die, no one will want to be a politician, so there will be no government. Geesh! You think government works badly now, wait ‘til it ceases to exist!
Don’t worry. Ninja turtles show up at the end and slap the guy.
2) Owned is a film based on this guy who decided to sell shares of stock…in himself! Then, in the model of publicly traded company, he allows shareholders (including total strangers) to vote on his life decisions: dating, working, whether or not to get a vasectomy, you know, stuff you might ask your Uber driver. Of course, the shareholders with the most shares get more votes, even if they’re, like I said, TOTAL STRANGERS and disagree with the family, friends, and girlfriend, who for some reason, are all GOING ALONG WITH THIS SHIT and own shares in our very likable, relatable protagonist. In the end, a choice will be made. Based on a shareholder vote: Should the publicly owned guy start pretending he has soul? Or he should he keep it one hundred? We’ll have to call it a Rom-Com—but for people who believe in neither rom nor com.
3) Giant Jockstrap War is the comic book movie your entire life has been leading up to. It’s about an alien who’s been searching the galaxy for the support he needs and then finds out the Galaxy’s Largest jock strap exists on Earth. So he comes to Earth to claim the jock so he can get back into doing jumping jacks, but for some reason Captain America and Iron Man fight him for it. The action’s amazing, the CGI’s majestic, but couldn’t they just let the giant bug with dinosaur feet have the big damn jock strap?