Zach Braff has been causing controversy over the past few weeks for his decision to fund his latest film by using the website, Kickstarter.
“My brain has trouble with the logic of saying I’m taking money away from another Kickstarter campaign if I’m bringing people that didn’t even know about Kickstarter to begin with,” he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
Braff has already raised more than $2 million for his next project, entitled Wish I Was Here. “I never talked to studios,” he said. “I didn’t want to make it with studios. Since Garden State, I’ve had so much experience of that being a nightmare.”
The actor/writer/director admits that most of the decisions he’s made in his career have been somewhat unconventional. “Everything I have don’t that…I’ve had success with has been preceded by people saying ‘That’s not going to work,’” he recalled. “And that was the same with this. People saying, ‘You’re going to put your face on this thing’ and ‘What if you build it and they don’t come? It’s going to be humiliating.’”
But Braff decided it was worth the risk.
“I just thought I had nothing to lose,” he said. “I thought, ‘I know I have this loyal fan base. I know they want me to make another movie. I know they want me to be totally in charge of it. I know that it will take some explaining because there are people who don’t understand how the business works and will be confused.’”
The production budget is slated to be between $4 and $6 million. At this point, Braff doesn’t know how much of his own money he’ll have to contribute.
“I don’t know what it is yet,” he said. “I guarantee you it will be a lot of money but I don’t know what it is yet because it will all depend on where we close on Kickstarter.”
