Zach Braff's Kickstarter Movie Raises $1 Million in One Day

There are a lot of Garden State fans out there. Actor/director and Scrubs star Zach Braff has turned to Kickstarter to fund his idea for an indie

film called Wish I Was Here. In one day, he has nearly reached $1 million of his $2 million goal.

Braff follows Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas, who raised nearly $6 million to make a full-length movie out of his cult-classic TV show. Small scale movies  have been a staple of the platform ever since the beginning, but projects like this represent a clear escalation. Veronica Mars might play a similar role to what Double Fine Adventure did for video games. After that game raised a staggering $3.3 million, a lot of other people in the video game industry decided to try their ideas, and some did even better than Double Fine. After A VR headset and an Android-powered console raised millions, it was clear that Kickstarter was wielding an impressive influence in the videogame world. Two major successes from big names in the film business might spur the same pattern.

Braff cites Thomas's example in his campaign:

"After I saw the incredible way “Veronica Mars” fans rallied around Kristen Bell and her show’s creator Rob Thomas, I couldn’t help but think (like I'm sure so many other independent filmmakers did) maybe there is a new way to finance smaller, personal films that didn’t involve signing away all your artistic control.

Financing an independent film the traditional way often means having to give away your right to 'the final cut,' casting choices, location choices and cutting down your script to make it shoot-able on the cheapest budget possible."

I mean, if people are just giving it away, he seems to be thinking, why not grab some? At this point, it's highly likely that Braff will hit his goal with room to spare. Don't be surprised if we see a lot more projects like this.