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.

 

[OB1]

Unreal. Will probably end up a feature length special.
No way they don’t end up getting at least a Netflix series out of this.
I wonder if the main problem they had getting studio funding was a desire to keep it MA.

 

[Hussar]

Wow. A perfect way to test the waters for a D&D movie.

 

[darjr]

It made CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/04/cri...dungeons--dragons-kickstarter-in-an-hour.html

 

[gyor]

Kicktraq is now projecting over 89 million dollars. Yes I already know why it's unlikely to hit that, I don't need reminding, but it's fun to speculate what would they do if they hit that mark. It'd literally be game changing if they did. I don't mean just for critical role or D&D, I mean for straight up the movie industry.

Imagine they hit this mark, and say the Rock sees it and decides he wants to make Baywatch 2 so he kicks starts it.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Do they even have the legal rights to do a D&D movie or could this end up in the courts? I mean I can't see Warner Bros. Being okay with this or Hasbro if they aren't getting a cut of the money.

Well it's set in it's own setting. None of the race or class names are copyrighted by WotC. No other game terms are likely to come up in the course of a movie or series.

Still CR and WotC seem to have a very happy working relationship so the question is probably moot anyway.

 

[OB1]

Wow. A perfect way to test the waters for a D&D movie.

I think we’d be better served by a good live action Netflix show. Big budget films need to be safe in order to be successful. D&D is inherently weird. I don’t want to see that weirdness removed to make it palatable to a large general audience.

As amazing as this Kickstarter is, and even if they end up with 100,000 backers and $10m in contributions, that’s 20 million fewer people then would need to show up to make a feature film successful.

 

[gyor]

I think we’d be better served by a good live action Netflix show. Big budget films need to be safe in order to be successful. D&D is inherently weird. I don’t want to see that weirdness removed to make it palatable to a large general audience.

As amazing as this Kickstarter is, and even if they end up with 100,000 backers and $10m in contributions, that’s 20 million fewer people then would need to show up to make a feature film successful.

I would love to see as a Netflix series or multiple D&D series.

And right now kicktraq has it trending over 101 million, if it gets a quarter of that, you are talking over 25 million dollars.

I would be surprised if it doesn't hit over 5 million dollars by the end of the day.

 

[kenmarable]

Well, it only took just over 4 hours to hit the Top 100 Kickstarters of all time!

Also, they do state that it's aiming to make an animated series, not a movie. If it (very unlikely) fizzles out at "only" 3 or 4 22-minute segments funded, I could see them bundling it into a single movie-length special. But since they are likely to blow pass that in the next few hours, the main question is how many episodes they will be able to fund.

 

[Hussar]

I think we’d be better served by a good live action Netflix show. Big budget films need to be safe in order to be successful. D&D is inherently weird. I don’t want to see that weirdness removed to make it palatable to a large general audience.

As amazing as this Kickstarter is, and even if they end up with 100,000 backers and $10m in contributions, that’s 20 million fewer people then would need to show up to make a feature film successful.

On the other hand, I'd point to things like Rooster Teeth's Red vs Blue series based on the Halo video game. Which has been put up on Netflix as well. Millions of viewers and now 17 years of seasons. Pretty darn successful I'd say.

Like I said, a very good way to test the waters. Not that this is a mainstream big budget movie. That's not what a test is. If this is successful, they can show that it's possible to make a D&D show that can make money.

 

[gyor]

Well, it only took just over 4 hours to hit the Top 100 Kickstarters of all time!

Also, they do state that it's aiming to make an animated series, not a movie. If it (very unlikely) fizzles out at "only" 3 or 4 22-minute segments funded, I could see them bundling it into a single movie-length special. But since they are likely to blow pass that in the next few hours, the main question is how many episodes they will be able to fund.

Top kick-start is roughly 20,300,000. I think this could beat that.

 

[MarkB]

At this point, the limiting factor regarding how much content they produce is probably how much time they want to devote to it, considering they're intending to do the vast majority of the voice work themselves. I doubt they'd want to place themselves in the position of being too busy producing their animated show to keep up with their streamed shows.

 

[Reynard]

What's their average live viewing audience?

 

[jimmytheccomic]

Do they even have the legal rights to do a D&D movie or could this end up in the courts? I mean I can't see Warner Bros. Being okay with this or Hasbro if they aren't getting a cut of the money.

The "Adventure Zone" comic was an adaptation of the DMs altered take on "Lost Mines of Phandelver", they just scratched off all the serial numbers and changed some names around.

 

[OB1]

On the other hand, I'd point to things like Rooster Teeth's Red vs Blue series based on the Halo video game. Which has been put up on Netflix as well. Millions of viewers and now 17 years of seasons. Pretty darn successful I'd say.

Like I said, a very good way to test the waters. Not that this is a mainstream big budget movie. That's not what a test is. If this is successful, they can show that it's possible to make a D&D show that can make money.

Right exactly! I think it’s a great test for doing either an animated or live action series that would run on a streaming service. I just don’t think we should set a theatrically released film as the standard or even the goal.
I’d much rather get a 10 episode a year live action series budgeted at $100m a year like GoT rather than a single $150m theatrical release. Hopefully the success of this can help something like that get made!

 

[Hussar]

Well, they're just about to break 2.5 million. Yeesh, since I have my Kickstarter set in Yen, the bloody number is just a blur.

 

[Parmandur]

What's their average live viewing audience?

I dunno, but they have over 300,000 subscribers just on YouTube. I know their streams have cracked the.million viewers mark, but that is not average. There are a lot of people who might get involved in 45 days, basically, for a small bit at least.

 

[SigmaOne]

I'm in. I love being able to support CR in this way.

 

[Parmandur]

They want to make a D&D movie, Hasbro owns the rights to D&D and Warner Bros. Licienced the movie rights as I understand it.

They have passed the 2 million dollar USD mark and are still shooting higher.

They aren't making a "D&D" movie, though, they are making a Ceitical Role movie. They've published RPG material and comics without violating Hasbro legal space, and as they are entertainment industry professionals I'm sure they have sought legal advise on this project. Maybe even talked to Hasbro about it

 

[Parmandur]

So, they just knocked down the penultimate stretch goal, and have one more 22 minute block at $3 million remaining. The next 45 days will be interesting.

 

[gweinel]

They will not have any problem.
I am sure they contacted Wizards before they make their move.
It is a win - win case, since CR is a living D&D advertisment. The most successful one. Ever.