On the heels of the successful Kickstarter campaign to bring cult favorite Veronica Mars to the big screen, comes word that other Hollywood types are also turning to the online crowd-sourcing site to raise money for their own passion projects. Most recently, Scrubs’ Zach Braff took to Kickstarter a couple of days ago to raise funds for his indie Wish I Was Here which is sort of/but not really a sequel to his earlier indie hit Garden State.

While he has already raised over $1.7 million as of this writing toward his $2 million goal, it hasn’t been all love and roses for Braff as he has incurred the wrath of many netizens who are accusing the actor of “ruining Kickstarter.” It seems there are folks who just don’t like the idea of a “rich” Hollywood celebrity taking advantage of a platform that was created to support those who are more…needy. The criticism got so bad that Braff had to respond by stating that he doesn’t have Oprah Winfrey money i.e. he’s not as rich as you think. Well…he’s rich but he’s not Oprah “I’m worth billions of dollars” rich.

Still, regardless of where you stand on this issue (I would’ve thought a more appropriate criticism would be—was anyone really hankering for another Zach Braff-directed indie?), it’s clear that the success of the Veronica Mars crowd sourcing campaign has opened the flood gates and online fundraising will most likely undergo drastic changes that we might not have even seen coming just a month ago.

I’ve blogged previously about “Kickstarter fatigue” but I’m now wondering if the “ruining” of Kickstarter by Hollywood’s intrusion might serve to benefit Asian American cinema.  Read more...