Here's what $3 million in Kickstarter money looks like

Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2014 at 3:21 PM Central

by John Couture

Thanks to the theatrical release of Veronica Mars last month, we know what $5.7 million of Kickstarter money looks like and it didn't look half bad. But let's not fool ourselves here, Veronica Mars was as much a Warner Bros. film as the upcoming Superman vs. Batman film. The only difference is that they didn't have to pony up the money themselves to make it.

So, Zach Braff's Wish I Was Here will be the first moderately budgeted true independent film financed by Kickstarter. The film has already debuted to mixed reviews at Sundance, but today's teaser trailer is the first time that most of us have seen footage from Braff's upcoming sophomore effort.

To be honest, the footage looks good and not surprisingly, the trailer is a fast ball down the middle of the plate to his core audience. You know, those 46,000+ backers of their Kickstarter project and those that enjoyed Garden State. From the footage, not much is revealed about the plot, but it's pretty apparent that the reason Wish I Was Here is a "spiritual sequel" to Garden State has to do with the personal touchstones of life in his 30s versus life in his 20s.

Gone is the flirtation of youth, in its place the reality of adulthood has taken root in his life with the wife and two kids. Fatherhood is going to be a large part of the film and I'm suspecting that Kate Hudson's wife character's absence from many of the scenes will be a pivotal plot point.

The bottom line is that this looks and feels like it should. So, whether that's solely because Zach Braff chose to use Kickstarter or not, the end result is all that matters. And so far, that result looks pretty good to me. Wish I Was Here will release in limited markets in July ahead of its wide August 1 rollout.