Your average cable TV drama costs upwards of $2M/episode, with Game of Thrones costing $4-$10 million/episode. Harry Potter has a big following, so it might make $10M all up - enough for a set and a pilot, maybe.
38 K people just raised $2 MM in 12 hours.
I think you're thinking about this all wrong.
I'd pay $10 to watch a new episode of Sherlock right now. Even if I have to wait 6 months for production. They can have $100, if I get 10 episodes. And if you can ONLY get episodes by paying for it, I think it'd scale.
There's a difference between exploiting this pent up demand in a one-off, and trying to fund a long-term regular series at that kind of cost.
You might be able to get $10MM to produce said Harry Potter show, but I don't think the support base is there to repeat it week over week over week.
At a lower budget level, definitely.
I think this could very easily be done directly from the fans.
The main obstacle in the case of something like Harry Potter would be that big funding sources would be stumbling over themselves to fund it anyway.
Somewhere in there, there's a crossover point to where the venture's profitability is obvious even to those not interested in the content.
My point is that the price that people are willing to pay for content decreases as you create more content. People might be willing to pay $50 to revive a movie from a long-dormant property, but would they pay the same $50 for the equivalent amount (2-3 episodes?) of a regular-run show?
My bet is on no, at least for now - this may change in the future.
This applies to more than just shows IMO - Chris Roberts (of Wing Commander fame) was able to raise a tremendous amount of money for his revival of the space sim genre - would he be able to raise even close to that amount if he went by, say, a yearly release?
Even if they did, that's EACH person you're talking about - if the content is popular, its base of consumers has gone up dramatically. If you double your viewers, but each is willing to contribute 40% less, that's still a net gain.
$10M doesn't create a TV show. It certainly isn't going to create a movie with well know actors like Veronica Mars - there are definitely other parties kicking in for this.
[1] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-vid... [2] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/#... [3] http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/#chart-d...
...I somewhat disagree. If you're financing a film of an existing property with a lot of goodwill around it (i.e, Veronica Mars), with a short shooting period (2-3 weeks, which is what they're talking about here), then you'll probably be able to get your cast to work at union rates along with points/profit participation.
US TV tends to be on the expensive side, but that doesn't mean you can't produce quality TV for less. In the UK the BBC tends to budget around $750,000-$1,000,000 per episode for prime-time drama, which gives you a good ten episode season for your $10 million.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_It_to_Beaver_%28Veronica...
TV pilots are produced as one-offs (often independently financed) and then shopped around to networks as a way to obtain funding for a full season.
So it's a small step from that to saying "We'll finance this show if you can produce a pilot on your own."
warner bros is covering the distribution and marketing.