Okay, so you can’t just be semi-famous and get a bunch of money. That’s good to know. So I was OK with the Veronica Mars Kickstarter, and then less OK with the Zach Braff Kickstarter, but it looks like our fears of “celebrities ruining crowdfunding” aren’t terribly founded, as former Sabrina the Teenage Witch Melissa Joan Hart has seen her dreams dashed.
After the multi-million dollar success of Rob Thomas’s project, the blood was in the water for Hollywood. One of the first to jump on the bandwagon was Melissa Joan Hart, who launched a Kickstarter for Darci’s Walk Of Shame, a $2 million rom-com in which she would lay the lead role of a schoolteacher who has to go solo to her sister’s wedding in Thailand. Hart got behind the project because she saw it as a chance to get back into bigger pictures (her current job is co-anchoring an ABC Family sitcom with Joey Lawrence). It was to be directed by Tibor Takács, who you probably don’t remember as the director of the Sabrina the Teenage Witch TV movie.
The project launched with all the expected stuff – a self-mocking promo video, reward tiers including a speaking part in the movie, and a heavy social network push. With the success of previous Hollywood Kickstarters, Hart probably felt like this was a can’t-miss.
Well, it didn’t work. After a month of fundraising, the project stalled out at just $51,000 – less than 3% of the total goal. The actress certainly had the social networking muscle to push it along, with over 300,000 followers on Twitter, so what went wrong? In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hart said “We didn’t give them the two things it takes to sell a movie: a poster and a trailer. I really think that’s where we missed the boat.” Uh, lady? Veronica Mars didn’t have a poster or a trailer. Neither did Zach Braff’s thing. I think “where you missed the boat” is that America doesn’t want to see you in a rom-com.