Critical Role Critical Role's Kickstarter Breaks $1,000,000 In About An Hour!

For those hoping for a new D&D cartoon, Critical Role has just launched a Kickstarter for an animated show based on their livestream campaign. It broke a million dollars in about an hour, and has 45 days left to go...

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"Critical Role's The Legend of Vox Machina reunites your favorite D&D heroes for a professional-quality animated special!"

Also on offer are theme song MP3s, production art prints, sticker sets, dice, playing card sets, plushies, pin sets, canvas bags, and more.

 

[André Soares]

So for those of familiar with what CR is, but not necessarily specifics of story, what's a Tiberius and why is it a problem?

Tiberius was a Dragonborn Sorcerer party member for the first part of the show. The player who played him has a troubled history with the group now, the character was killed off camera and the kickstarter page says he won't be a part of the animated series.

 

[CleverNickName]

Tiberius was a Dragonborn Sorcerer party member for the first part of the show. The player who played him has a troubled history with the group now, the character was killed off camera and the kickstarter page says he won't be a part of the animated series.

Orion Acaba (the actor who played Tiberius) commented on this kickstarter via Twitter yesterday.

 

[Parmandur]

Over 38,000 backers, $5.2 million, and counting...

This may become the biggest film Kickstarter today.

 

[MarkB]

I’m sure they won’t struggle to get any permission they need. I wouldn’t be surprised to see WotC ask *them* to feature D&D branding.

Assuming that they can. The D&D brand has never done well in movie form, but it has been passed around between a few studios, so the rights to publish something explicitly D&D-labelled in movie or series form may not actually lie with WotC right now.

 

[jmucchiello]

I’m sure they won’t struggle to get any permission they need. I wouldn’t be surprised to see WotC ask *them* to feature D&D branding.

D&D does NOT have a good track record on film. But even if that was not an issue, explaining what Mind Flayers are, the whole hive mind thing, and elder brain, etc. Would waste a lot of precious animation time to explain. The Briarwoods are vampire despots. Easy-peasy to convey to the new viewer without a lot of exposition.

Assuming that they can. The D&D brand has never done well in movie form, but it has been passed around between a few studios, so the rights to publish something explicitly D&D-labelled in movie or series form may not actually lie with WotC right now.

Unless google has failed me, Warner Bros own the D&D movie rights and have a film in production for a 2021 date. No idea if that's still true, though.

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They'll probably blow through the $5.75m goal before the stream tomorrow night.

 

[Parmandur]

D&D does NOT have a good track record on film. But even if that was not an issue, explaining what Mind Flayers are, the whole hive mind thing, and elder brain, etc. Would waste a lot of precious animation time to explain. The Briarwoods are vampire despots. Easy-peasy to convey to the new viewer without a lot of exposition.



Unless google has failed me, Warner Bros own the D&D movie rights and have a film in production for a 2021 date. No idea if that's still true, though.

No, Warner Bros. let their option lapse, and Hasbro Films and Paramount are doing a production now.

Nobody here knows where ancillary material like cartoon rights sits right now, pretty sure.

 

[jmucchiello]

Google has failed me.

Animation rights may or may not be tied to film rights.

 

[akr71]

Let's not get carried away. The primary audience for this is D&D fans in general and fans of Critical Role, specifically.

I mean maybe if they got around to doing an underdark/mind flayer story their audience may have expanded even more, possibly requiring explanation. However, the characters didn't know what they were either, so any explanation can be 'in-story.'

 

[jmucchiello]

Let's not get carried away. The primary audience for this is D&D fans in general and fans of Critical Role, specifically.

I mean maybe if they got around to doing an underdark/mind flayer story their audience may have expanded even more, possibly requiring explanation. However, the characters didn't know what they were either, so any explanation can be 'in-story.'

I would assume the target for this ultimately is Netflix or Amazon.

And I'm saying the in-story explanation would waste a lot of animation time, 3-5 minutes. And while the characters didn't know what they were, Liam and Taliesin knew exactly what they were. And the other players were brought up to speed OOC (and it took more than 3-5 minutes).

 

[Parmandur]

$5.3 million, and counting, with 39,000 backers...