Zach Braff has reached his $2 million goal in the first four days of his Kickstarter campaign to raise funds from fans for the drama “Wish I Was Here.”
The campaign crossed the $2 million mark shortly before noon Saturday, 26 days before its closing date, with backing from over 28,000 fans.
The project received 4,654 donations of $10 with the promise of a production diary; 3,848 pledges at $20 each to receive the soundtrack and playlist; 3,636 donations at $30 each for a “backers screening”; 6,251 at $40 for a “Wish I Was Here” T-shirt; and 2,115 at $60 for three art prints.
The campaign also raised significant coin via $100 donations for advance screenings with a Q-and-A with Braff including 104 for a screening in Toronto, 449 in Los Angeles, 630 in London, 399 in Chicago and 126 in San Francisco. The campaign also sold screenings for two at $200 each.
Other higher priced items included 432 backers at $150 for a signed copy of the “Garden State” DVD; 478 pledges at $175 for signed “Wish I Was Here” posters and 400 backers who promised $200 each to get their name into the film under a “writing on the wall” pledge.
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“I’ll put your name in the movie,” Braff explained. “My character in the film encounters a wall covered in graffiti each morning. Give me a name for our set designers to paint on the wall. I can’t guarantee every name will be legible in the final cut. But, you will be able to find your name in high rez images of the wall that I’ll send out in the backer update. Your support will forever be a part of the history of how this movie got made, and I will show it.”
Braff plans to star and direct from a screenplay he co-wrote with his brother Adam. Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg will produce via their Double Feature Films.
For “Wish I Was Here,” Braff will portray a struggling actor, husband and father trying to find his identity and purpose at age 35. He winds up trying to home school his two children when his father can no longer afford to pay for private education and the only available public school is on its last legs.
Producers plan to shoot the film in Los Angeles in the summer.
Braff cited the success of last month’s “Veronica Mars” campaign, which raised a record $5.7 million on Kickstarter, as a reason for going ahead with his own campaign.
I was about to sign a typical financing deal to get the money to make ‘Wish I Was Here,’ my follow up to ‘Garden State,'” he said on the campaign page. ” It would have involved making a lot of sacrifices I think would have ultimately hurt the film. I’ve been a backer for several projects on Kickstarter and thought the concept was fascinating and revolutionary for artists and innovators of all kinds. But I didn’t imagine it could work on larger-scale projects. I was wrong.”
Braff wrote, directed and starred in 2004′s “Garden State.” He was most recently seen in Sam Raimi’s “Oz the Great and Powerful.”
