Up until now, MARC ZICREE’s original sci-fi epic SPACE COMMAND hasn’t had much, if any, difficulty raising crowd-funding donations from fans. But we are currently living in the age of a global pandemic, people are losing their jobs and/or being furloughed, and contributions to fan projects aren’t flowing nearly as freely as they used to be.
Space Command got its start waaaaaaay back in 2012 with an early Kickstarter that brought in a staggering $212K from more than 2,000 donors. It then took five years for the project to reach post-production, where a second Kickstarter raised an additional $108K that would help complete the first hour of the 2-hour pilot episode “Redemption.”
A third Kickstarter raised $102K more for post-production on the second hour of the pilot. Marc also sold individual $7,500 shares in the venture for supporters looking for a return on investment if/when the series sells. Those shares brought in an additional half million dollars.
A fourth Kickstarter in 2019 raised $86K for production to begin on the first hour of the second 2-hour episode, “Forgiveness.” And finally, this past April, a fifth Kickstarter raised $57K to help fund production on the second half of “Forgiveness.” Add it all up, and that’a more than $565K in donations and over a million dollars total including investment share sales!
Last month, Space Command launched a sixth Kickstarter to fund the remainder of production on “Forgiveness.” Already, the first hour of “Redemption” has been completed and released, and the second hour has been filmed and is nearly complete (it will have more than 900 visual FX shots!). The first hour of “Forgiveness” is filmed and now in post production. And the second hour of “Forgiveness” is ready to film as soon as it’s safe to do so and as soon as this sixth Kickstarter reaches its $48K goal.
And therein lies the problem.
Kickstarter’s rules say that your campaign needs to set a goal, and if you don’t reach that goal—no matter how close you come—you don’t get anything, no one’s credit card is charged, and the campaign is considered a failure. With only two days to go, the latest Space Command Kickstarter is still $11K short of its $48K goal (a miss of nearly 25%).
While it’s not impossible that Space Command can bridge that gap in so short a period of time, the independent sci-fi film project has never had to face such a challenge before. Each of the previous campaigns reached their goals easily and even surpassed them to unlock stretch goals.
But right now, the global economy is in shambles, millions have lost their jobs, and many crowd-funding campaigns are struggling (not just this one). On the other hand, Space Command still has thousands of loyal supporters. So don’t count them out completely just yet.
If you want to make a donation, click on the link below…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spacecommand/space-command-episode-4-forgiveness-part-2
And here is the exciting pitch video from MARC SCOTT ZICREE…
In addition to “Redemption” and “Forgiveness,” Space Command also recently undertook a very ambitious project: releasing a totally brand new, special two-hour episode featuring 25 different actors and cast members who recorded their segments from their homes (thanks to the pandemic and quarantine). The resulting film, “Ripple Effect” (released on July 1), chronologically spans the entire scope of history that Space Command will cover, from the year 2030 through 2071. These home performances were combined with some previously shot footage to create an immersive montage of all the many storylines that Marc Zicree has planned for the 12-hour run of Space Command. The lives of parents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great grandchildren are followed in this unique film.
Among the actors participating in “Ripple Effect” are NICHELLE NICHOLS (from Star Trek), DOUG JONES (from Discovery); ROBERT PICARDO (from Voyager); ARMIN SHIMERMAN and J.G. HERTZLER (from Deep Space Nine), MIRA FURLAN and BILL MUMY (from Babylon 5), BARBARA BAIN (from Space: 1999), and even NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON (from Cosmos). For obvious reasons, the film lacks polish in places, but overall, it’s actually quite well done and well acted. Some performances are truly magnificent.
If you’ve been a fan of Space Command so far, it’s definitely worth checking out…
My problem with Space Command isn’t the fundraising, the length of time it’s taken, the business model or Marc Zicree’s control.
It’s that the pilot was, well, boring. I struggled to watch it through, found nothing to grab me in the characters and really didn’t find myself wanting more.
Particularly for a project that’s taken 8 years, and especially when the selling point was the scriptwriter’s experience, I was deeply underwhelmed.
The second half-hour was better than the first. Lots of slow exposition in the first half-hour. I’m hoping the second hour is better. We’ll see…
It’s been funded. I looked a few minutes ago and they had $51,500. 🙂
Amazing. But I think they had a $10K donor for a big jump.