http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project

According to Andrew Kenneth Gay, this is the new way to go - they originally went for $2m.

Gray states:

We all know that Kickstarter has changed the way independent filmmakers raise production funds. What’s revolutionary here is that Thomas is raising money for a studio-owned property. Warner Brothers, which owns the rights to Mars, is reluctant to waste resources on a project that might not have the necessary consumer demand, so they’ve struck a deal with Thomas: if he validates his audience using Kickstarter (raising $2,000,000 in the process), they’ll greenlight the project and agree to distribute.

We might be looking at film history here. What could this mean for properties like Firefly and Arrested Development? This is the studio system acting like a lean startup. Are we looking at a future where low-budget studio pictures are greenlit on the basis of crowdfunded validation?

With specs looking increasingly out of fashion, maybe partnerships with crowd-sourcing is the future?