As of right now, the Indiegogo campaign for Super Troopers 2 has raised more than $3.1 million. It reached its $2 million goal within a day of its launch on Thursday. Only the Internet gods know how much it will bring in by the time the campaign ends on April 25, but it may well end up being among the 20 most successful crowdfunding projects ever. (Even if it doesn't quite reach up to the ever-gestating Star Citizen.) Not bad for the sequel to a goofy cop flick released more than a decade ago.
The wild success of Super Troopers 2's campaign is largely the result of lingering goodwill for the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, which will be revisiting its 2001 cult favorite. But some credit also must go to Ivan Askwith. You've likely never heard of him, but in the past few years Askwith has established himself as a crowdfunding guru, working behind-the-scenes on the Kickstarter campaign for the Veronica Mars movie, which raised $5.7 million from 90,000 backers, the $5.4 million campaign to revive the classic kids' TV series Reading Rainbow, and now the campaign for Super Troopers 2. (Before that, he ran the Digital Media division at Lucasfilm, overseeing efforts to promote Star Wars properties.)
It's an impressive resume, but not one Askwith necessarily brags about. Reached by phone, he was quick to shift the focus to Broken Lizard, like a campaign manager continually steering the conversation back to his candidate. "These guys already did the hardest thing you can do—they made something that people still care about 15 years later," he says. "A lot of die-hard Super Troopers fans saw the Indiegogo pitch and said, 'I figure I owe those guys at least a dollar.'" (A one-dollar pledge, by the way, earns backers the "Bare-Ass Bundle," a photocopy of a Broken Lizard member's "sweet mother loving" butt.)
What will Broken Lizard do with the money? "First, we're going to rub the money all over ourselves, just like Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal," they write on their Indiegogo page. "Then, we're going to kiss each and every dollar bill. Then we'll fill a pool with the money and do backstrokes through it. Then we'll bury the money and agree to tell no one about it. Then we'll turn on each other and make accusations." Then they'll use it to fund the entirety of the production and marketing of the film. (Fox Searchlight is releasing it, but the Broken Lizard crew has to score all of the funding themselves.)
The pledge page is full of this kind of irreverence. "The campaign itself has to be a work of entertainment, like we're running a show," says Askwith. "Most campaigns do a big pitch video, then a few updates in which they apologize about how busy they are. Broken Lizard did a launch video and 19 or 20 followup videos that we're posting almost daily. It's sort of like the Exploding Kittens card game campaign that made the whole crowdfunding thing so fun." (A campaign that co-creator Elan Lee says Askwith was "a huge help" with.) "We want to make it feel like an experience you're having over the course of a month," Askwith says, "something you want to go along on the ride for."
Now that the Super Troopers 2 campaign has met its initial goal, the focus will shift to painting a picture of how more money will make the film bigger and better, and to crafting new stretch goals that will attract additional backers and convince existing backers to increase their donations. "We're looking to quietly introduce a new reward every few days," Askwith says. "The press has been digging that the Broken Lizard guys will be the groomsmen (or bridesmaids) at your wedding for $25,000. Now we're thinking, what can we offer that's even crazier? Like, pledge to chug a beer with one of the guys on Skype, or pledge and they'll show up at a clothing shop and pick out an outfit for you."
They're also able to devise new rewards on the fly, and quickly change course if they have second thoughts. "We actually let people pledge $35,000 for the patrol car we'll use in the film, and someone bought it within 24 hours," Askwith says. "Well, we'll be using several patrol cars in the movie, so we decided to put another patrol car up on the pledge site. But after six or seven hours, we realized that offering more patrol cars might not be fair to the backer who bought the first one—offering more might make him feel like his reward is less special. We decided that that's not something we want to do, and we took it down."
The pledge that Askwith and Broken Lizard are most proud of is "The Fandango Bango," which will allow fans to purchase tickets to see Super Troopers 2 in the theater---before pre-production has even begun. (The movie starts shooting this summer; Askwith is co-producing.) "We're hoping to prove to Hollywood that there's a right and a wrong way to let fans watch a movie that's made with their money," he says. "On Veronica Mars, Warner Bros. saw what happened when fans feel you're not treating them fairly."
Backers of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter were able to pledge for digital downloads of the film that they could get on the same day it premiered in theaters. But they later learned they were locked into using one specific download source. "Some backers got the impression that it was only redeemable on Flixter because that's what was best for Warner Bros.," Askwith says. "The takeaway for some backers was, 'See what happens when you take a chance and back a project? You get less options than people who wait to see it in theaters.' Warner quickly tried to make it right, but it's hard to undo that message of the studio doing what's right for it and not for fans."
Crowdfunding can make passionate fans feel empowered, as if the fate of this beloved franchise is literally in their hands. But that passion can quickly turn to outrage if fans feel that they're being taken advantage of. (Just ask Zach Braff.)
In a piece on The Daily Beast, Broken Lizard member Jay Chandrasekhar said he longs for the day when filmmakers can allow tens of thousands of backers to literally invest in the movie, and own an equity piece of the backend. (Something that may actually be in the offing.) "Look, I can't wait for the future when equity-based crowdfunding passes," he wrote. "But in the meantime, our campaign aspires to be a step in the right direction."
