In just two days, Broken Lizard has raised more than $2 million on Indiegogo, thus ensuring that they’ll make Super Troopers 2. I was going to write “(hey, remember those guys?)” after “Broken Lizard” in that sentence, but clearly, people do remember Broken Lizard, because as of now—
*clicks over to other tab*
—they’ve got a little more than two and a half million. And counting.
This is a weird one: Other than Jay Chandrasekhar, who’s gone on to direct a bunch of great TV, the rest of Broken Lizard seems to have just disappeared. And other than hearing stoners quote Super Troopers every once in a while, one would not count the comedy troupe’s cultural impact as… ah… massive? But apparently it’s massive enough to get a low-budget sequel made!
Like Veronica Mars, the upcoming Deadpool, and the maybe-upcoming Leviathan (let’s take this opportunity to not think about Zach Braff), Super Troopers 2 is another relatively high-profile example of how the internet is changing what films get made. This is probably a good thing: Studios and production companies are usually terrible (and slow) at figuring out what people want, while the internet and crowd-funding are very good (and very fast) at figuring out what people want. It also scales: A major motion picture or a big TV show has to appeal to a lot of people to make its money back, which is why so many of them are stupid and bland; being able to make specific movies for specific audiences is a solid alternative.
That said—and I type this, I just realized, while wearing my Veronica Mars Kickstarter T-shirt—this shit still seems like a cheap, sketchy workaround by risk-averse studios. $2 million might be a lot for Kickstarter, but it’s peanuts for a film investment, and Broken Lizard’s explanation for why they had to do an Indiegogo—
While the studio has given us permission to make the sequel, and agreed to distribute it (at least in the USA and Canada), we need to fund the movie ourselves.
—seems remarkably similar to how Warner Bros. treated Veronica Mars. On one hand, who cares? Most people who donate to this campaign just want a Super Troopers 2, and they’re willing to pay for it. But on the other hand, how sustainable is this kind of lopsided investment? Will there ever be a way for online contributors to become actual investors, not just starry-eyed donors? Right meow, at least, the people running these campaigns are in a pretty sweet spot: They’re taking on none of the risks, but they’ll take in all of the potential profits.