$6.3 Million goal has been reached and FOURTEEN new episodes are coming!
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#BringBackMST3K Kickstarter Tracker
704 Replies to “#BringBackMST3K Kickstarter Tracker”Commenting at Satellite News
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I am surprised we don’t see more of that. I guess I’ve made comments along that line, though I am very much in support of this. The show feels like it will be a significantly different animal from the one we loved, but at the heart of it, three guys riffing on movies, will hopefully remain the same.
The one thing that should be pointed out. Having people like Jerry Seinfeld, Neil Patrick Harris, Jack Black, and Mark Hamill isn’t really just about getting more money for the campaign, it’s about the potential of getting a better deal for the show to get on the air. Having guests of that caliber will more likely draw eyes to it. It’s just more evidence that Joel is all about “I’m not bringing this back as a one-off…this is my retirement plan.”
Which gets higher ratings: “A brand new episode of MST3K” or “A brand new episode of MST3K with Jerry Seinfeld and Neil Patrick Harris”? Plus now you have things like the ‘bots showing up on “Best Time Ever” (assuming it is renewed).
Now, understand this though – the whole thing risks making the show more mainstream, and also risks studio meddling: “Why is this funny, I don’t get this, these jokes have to be more broad?”
I still am excited to see how it all plays out.
These announcements today are wonderful news and I think bode really well for the big 5.5M +++!
Agreed; no “cow town puppet show” no more.
Great points; here I think we gotta trust Joel to “fight the man” and keep the show true to its roots. Armed with the strength of this hugely-successful crowdfunding effort he’ll be successful. WE are the unwashed masses, the peasants rising up with our pitchforks and stormin’ the castle. Hear us ROAR!!!
I’m a little giddy… can you tell?
Mega-dittos!
Hmmmmm….celebrities? More seats in the theater? Widescreen? Mark Hamill? I get it…
Jonah, Mark & the bots sitting in the theater watching Revenge Of The Sith. Hayden Christensen appears on the screen and Mark yells out, “You’re not my real father!”
I can see how cameos from celebrities could have a lot of value.
Well, to be fair, Hamill IS a complete nut, in the good way: :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeT0CCQ1yqo
(And besides, ROTS would be “too RiffTrax” for the new series to do.)
Ya, know, I really had my doubts they’d make the full $5.5 million, but with all the add-ons, and how much the funding has increased this week, I think it will be pretty tight, but they might just make it. Fingers are crossed.
While the average per backer is impressive I’m not sure that is the best thing in terms of selling the show to a network. A network isn’t going to care as much about how much money was raised to create the pilot season, they are going to care more about how many eyeballs will be watching when they go to sell add time. So that smaller number of backers might be a bit of a negative.
A couple of us were talking earlier about how there’s no such thing as obscurity anymore. You can buy an electronic Dalek at Wal-Mart, right next to the Rocket Raccoon action figures.
At the same time, entertainment is more fragmented than it’s ever been; there are so many more choices, and fewer eyeballs on each. No other scripted show will ever have an audience as big as the last episode of MASH.
For network TV, this trend has largely meant a rush to the bottom — quirky cult shows like Community get cancelled, while lowest-common-denominator dreck like Big Bang Theory keeps getting renewed. (Though even that lowest-common-denominator dreck is about nerds arguing about nerd trivia.)
Cable and online providers like Amazon and Netflix have gone in much the opposite direction, and cultivated cult audiences. AMC is currently running not one but two hit shows based on a black-and-white comic about zombies. Netflix just debuted a popular and critically-acclaimed adaptation of a Marvel comic that, fifteen years ago, had trouble finding a company willing to print its first issue. Where CBS has Scorpion, USA has Mr. Robot — both are shows about hacker collectives, but the network TV show is shiny Hollywood computers-are-magic garbage and the cable show is nastier, grimmer, and mostly depicts computers plausibly.
I think cable networks (and Amazon and Netflix) have proven pretty good about letting creative people do what they want and getting out of the way. Joel’s oft-quoted line, “Not everyone will get it, but the right people will” is seen as a viable business strategy by a lot of networks now.
Big-name guest stars are likely to increase viewership — and that’s a good thing. But the show getting more popular doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be dumbed down, or that whatever network it lands on will meddle with it.
And even if it does, the Sci-Fi era still managed to be pretty great despite network meddling.
Yeah, that’s a reasonable concern (though in Netflix’s case, substitute “new and continuing subscriptions” for “ad time”). But I do think a lot more advertisers are seeing value in small-but-dedicated fanbases. 37,000 pledges just by word-of-mouth is nothing to sneeze at.
MEANWHILE: Today’s total is about to hit $240K on Kickstarter; once you count add-ons it’s already the third-highest day of the campaign. Double-feature starts in about 40 minutes. I think we should clear $400K with add-ons; $500K is a possibility.
One man’s dreck is another man’s treasure.
C’est la vie
Just donated. First Kickstarter pledge. Seems like a worthy pursuit. Went for the Blu-ray package. Just a sucker for physical media. Plus it seems like a good value. Good luck, Joel!
I have totally swung around. I have no doubt now we’re going to hit $5.5 million. By my calcs, there at $5 million with 24 hours to go. I think half a million on the last day is in the bag.
The thing is – I thought when they hit $4.4 they would need 10,000 more backers in the last 4 days, which seems really impossible. However, they are already over 6,000 new backers in the last 3 days. 4,000 backers and $500K to go!!!!
I believe in the power of music Mr B.!!!
When our Wednesday total came to about 77% of the total for Day 3, I wondered if we’d see a similar percentage today compared to Day 2, or tomorrow compared to Day 1. Kicktraq’s final total for Thursday is $343.4K, or about 70% of our Day 2 total, which isn’t far off the mark.
I estimated before that we’d have a pretty comfortable safety margin if the last day follows the pattern, and the add-on rewards have been larger than I expected, so I also feel pretty good about reaching $5.5M tomorrow. Exciting!
Considering they’ve come close to $400k today, seems likely that there’s another huge push coming tomorrow.
I’d hope there is another update from Joel before tonight ends (10 pm PST, just as the final 24 hours start?).
Hopefully, they’ll keep the http://mst3k.com/kickstarter/addons/ page running for a week or two after the official kickstarter has ended to bring them up to whatever little amount they need to reach the full 5.5M, and/or give themselves a little bit of extra buffer-cash if they go over. (Which seems entirely possible.)
Considering that you can pre-order the new series for $85 (DVD) or $100 (Blu-Ray), and the proceeds will go towards the total series budget, that’s a great deal for 12 episodes (cheaper than the price of 3 classic series sets), and probably about what you’d end up paying anyways when the set eventually gets released commercially by Shout.
Yeah, you’re taking a gamble that the new series won’t be utterly unwatchable, but I think they’ve pulled in enough guest riffers that the theater segments should be just fine, and even if the new SOL crew don’t quite capture the same magic as the classic series guest cast, it’ll still be funny enough that I want to rewatch it as often as I do my RiffTrax and Film Crew DVDs.
Actually, I need to correct myself here: those weren’t the final Kicktraq numbers! The real final total for Thursday is $359,005, or 73% of our Day 2 total. My guess of 77% was even closer than I thought!
So let me split the difference and guess that our Kickstarter total for tomorrow is 75% of our Day 1 total: about $602K. That will be enough to put us over $5.61M, with the add-on sales figures we already have.
I think we’re missing the big issue here. And that is:
BOBO PUPPET?!?!?!?
The Bobo Puppet plus the drawing of Kinga with Pearl makes me wonder if they’ve maybe lined up Mary Jo to appear, and Kevin to at least provide a voice.
One other thing no one talks about is that if they are on a stream service or some non-traditional media…they aren’t beholden to the same time constraints of television. No longer will it be necessary to cut a movie for time. This is good news for those of us that love the cheesy movies as much as we love the show.
If I’m reading the announcements on who is working on the show, it appears as if the bots will be puppeteered by people not doing the voices. I know that’s how they did the Kickstarter videos, but it sounds like that will be the way it’s being done for the actual shows as well.
That’s kind of interesting. Perhaps this way the “bots” can be anywhere in the world that has a recording studio & they can record their lines at a later date & they’ll just dub them in to the visuals.
@skierpete – I’ve already been seeing it several times on this page, Facebook and Twitter. I know it’s a relatively small amount, but it bums me out every time.
Whew; welcome back everybody! (And my thanks and condolences to the folks keeping this site up under what’s undoubtedly a surge of traffic this past month.) I wrote the first part of this post last night before the site went down, so if it sounds like it’s from yesterday, that’s because it is:
Yep; $360K today not including add-ons; we’re over $5M when you do include them — $500K tomorrow is a pretty safe bet, I think.
I’m hoping the Add-Ons page stays up for awhile too, but I think the $85 digital-only tier is the far more attractive option for the price; it’ll come with the full season and classic episodes: 11 right now, and I think Joel said in tonight’s cast that he’d bump it up to 13 if we hit $5.5M. I prefer physical media, but I also prefer 25 episodes to 12.
Of course, if you’ve already got most or all of the old series anyway, then I can see how the classic episodes wouldn’t be as enticing as a nice DVD set.
Maybe. The Bobo drawing looks more like a toy; I was wondering if there might be merchandising coming.
Maybe, but I think a lot of times they did us a favor by cutting the movies down. There have been times I’ve watched Rifftrax movies and thought “Oh God, when will this END?”
Something interesting to note with today’s numbers so far: not just the money coming in, but the number of backers. It’s still morning (or noon on the east coast) but it’s already the sixth-highest day in terms of number of contributors. I think that by the end of today it’ll be the second-highest, both in money pledged and in number of backers.
Since we were talking a bit ago about the importance of the number of backers and not just the average donation, this is a good sign. We’re not going to get to Veronica Mars-level 90,000-backer numbers, but we’re going to clear 40,000.
Has this question been asked before? Apologies if it has, and if so, will someone please point me to the answer?
Will this site continue to be the officially sanctioned fan site for the new show? I’m really looking forward to coming here and talking about the new episodes with the core MST3K family, and hopefully some new family members will be interested in visiting the site once the new show starts attracting new viewers.
Yeah I’m curious to see how the Bobo thing works out.
Heh … I can’t remember the last time Professor Bobo got so much attention! :laugh:
Welp, a month ago we were saying “It’ll make 2M, but I don’t know if it can make $3.3M.”
2 weeks ago, we were saying “It’ll make 3.3M, but I don’t know if it can make $4.4M.”
A few days ago, we were saying “It’ll make $4.4M, but I don’t know if it can make $5.5M.”
Welp, it looks like it’ll make $5.5M. I don’t know if it can make $5.9M — but I’m looking forward to finding out.
I do hope it makes the $5.5 million. It might be REALLY tight, but I think they very much could pull it off. I was doubtful, I admit. I thought they’d make the $4.4 million, but $5.5 appeared to be a long shot. But now it could happen, especially if Joel pulls a few last minute rabbits out of his hat. I’d love for him to say that the KTMA episodes everyone (well, most fans) want to see will be released.
Fingers crossed. It’s down to the wire.
The total absence of an update on the KTMA episodes has been very discouraging to me. I really hope Joel mentions them tonight as it would be the only thing that would make me up my pledge.
That would actually be pretty lame if they did it like that. Having the riffers live in the studio together is part if the charm, and it creates moments of humor that wouldn’t be there if voices were just recorded and dubbed separately. I REALLY hope they’re still going to do it like that.
Current KS-only number is $4.9312M with nearly 40,700 backers. And it seems to be climbing at a remarkable rate.
You MSTies are a CRAZY WONDERFUL bunch who defy logic.
“Trumpy… ” oh, forget it.
…still giddy…
I assumed it meant they would record the riffing all together in the traditional way, and the visuals would be added afterwards and matched to the dialogue.
Joel said that both Tom and Crow would be much more mobile than they used to be, which would take more expert handling than a couple of non-puppeteer voice artists should be expected to manage while still delivering their lines with good comic timing.
“We?”
As my dad used to say, “who’s we? You got a turd in your pocket?”
We just hit $5 million! Onwards! :-)
Finally got my pledge in, backed for $100 in order to get all the digital episodes and base rewards. Let’s take it to 5.5 million!
Yeah, I wouldn’t expect a guy who upvotes his own posts to notice there were other people besides himself participating in the conversation.
…
… Anyway, we’re within $10,000 of $5.5M. Good thing Joel came up with a new stretch goal, because we’re going to hit the previous one before the telethon even starts!
And we’ve passed the $5.5 million mark with the $400+K add-on total! Huzzah! Onward to $5.9 million!
Ye-ha! If they hit $5.9 million we get a bonus 13th Holiday Special episode!!!
SO EXCITING! I never really doubted that we’d get to $5.5M, especially with the great day we had yesterday, but it is SO SWEET to see it happen! Now we’re sure to get TWELVE NEW EPISODES OF MST3K!!! Seeing us also reach $5.5M on Kickstarter alone, and meeting Joel’s last stretch goal, will just be icing on the cake.
What an amazing 31 days this has been!
Pledged! Let’s do this!
Up to $5.6M and the telethon hasn’t started yet. Yeah, $5.9M seeming quite possible.
I’ll be honest, I really never thought it would get to this point, but I’m extremely happy it did. The benefit of pessimism is victories are that much sweeter and your never disappointed. I’ll be paying for this for the next five years, but it was worth it for this many new episodes (and the extremely large amount of swag I’m getting too). Still hoping for the lost episodes at some point.
I’m glad that at least we’re getting 12 episodes and hopefully 13 for at least a full season. I certainly hope the new episodes can find its rhythm and charm.
Delighted to, once again, be wrong and find that my estimate was conservative. (And just think — there were people who thought my guesses were too optimistic!)
Today is now #1 in backers, and on track to become #1 in terms of dollars too. (Not including Add-Ons. If you include Add-Ons, I’m sure it’s already there.)
Watching the tragedy that is the telethon, but the stretch goal is going to be met, if it hasn’t been already. KS number is $5.43 million. Add-on numbers have been $425,000 for a while. And the telethon finally caught up! It’s almost done, guys and gals. Everything else is icing in the cake.
The Telethon/Train Wreck seems to have found a sort of audio equilibrium.
The Grand Total is currently ticking over nicely, at $5.88 million.
But it’s nearly 3 in the morning here, so I’m going to zonk out soon (wine-assisted).
And officially over. $5,475,001 + $425,000 = 13 shows and hopefully a new Christmas tradition! With 2 hours and 42 minutes to spare!
$5.9 million!
It can break $6 million easily at this rate. And when you realize the add-on number hasn’t updated for hours…
Nobody seems to have told Joel yet.
Anybody know a good tool for downloading Youtube livestreams? Somebody needs to preserve this ridiculous thing.
Wonder what they’re going to do for the next two and a half hours. Maybe Patton Oswalt can come back and read more people’s tweets.
I hope they hit the $5.5 on Kickstarter not counting the Add-Ons. And wouldn’t it be cool if they hit $5.9 on Kickstarter alone?
Done.
At just over $5.7M they’ll have Veronica Mars beat, too. (Like Joel said, that’s not a knock against Veronica Mars; I’ve never seen it but my wife’s a fan and I bought her a copy of the movie.)
Watching the live telethon segment with the video game players – like watching someone else watching Manos The Hands Of Fate…