Rifftrax just finished its most successful Kickstarter campaign, despite only scheduling two of their four shows planned for this year.
It wound up earning nearly 621 thousand dollars thanks to more then eleven thousand backers, more than twice than what it got last year. That was due to two very wise moves.
First, fans found out there would be a big MST3K reunion June 28th.featuring most of the old staff, including the Mads (Trace Beaulieu and Frank Coniff) and Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Nelson (who are doing well by riffing shorts about suburbia). The excitement grew when original host Joel Hodgson and future host Jonah Ray announced they'd appear.
Then, Mike Nelson came up with a brilliant idea: offer free Rifftrax shorts depending on how many individual backers the campaign attracts. This helped keep up interest while he and the staff try to confirm the rights to two more movies. As a result, all backers will get ten free shorts, even those who donated a dollar. If a backer already has a short he bought individually, he'll get a credit for another one.
Later, that offer applied to planned riffs for several movies and even first episodes for popular shows. This meant, for just one dollar, a backer would get
*ten educational shorts
*mp3 riffs for the first episodes of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and Daredevil
*mp3 riffs for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Gravity (with Mary Jo and Bridget), Jurassic World, and the original Road House (the first major Rifftrax release).
That's what more than 1700 people will be enjoying, then realize they're going to have to buy those DVDs and maybe subscribe to Netflix to see the TV shows to enjoy the riffs. In a way, that boosts America's economy in so many ways.
The second biggest group (more than 1600) was those who donated 100 bucks. They get all of the above, and other stuff including two t-shirts, the MST reunion DVD and a coloring book. Not bad. Some of them will also have to get those DVDs, too.
The Periscope event, mainly Mike, Kevin and Bill talking about stuff, did reveal two interesting things. First, the app should be updated in the next two weeks that will allow people to download all the mp3 riffs they own. Hopefully that will include hearing the riffs during the opening credits to the Star Wars movies, too. Second, Kevin says he'd like the crew to take on The Godfather. That would be the biggest classic ever, easily toppling Jaws and Casablanca,
Some very wise fan decided to save the Periscope event, and it's located here.
It's actually interesting the crew will be doing more mp3 riffs this year. It looks like they're getting fans to use the new app by providing more titles. It's certain they'll get a lot more business once the app is improved, and when they offer the Star Wars and Gravity movies to everyone.
Now, all that's left is the waiting for those sweet shorts and mp3's, and the first Rifftrax Live show, Time Chasers, coming on May 5th.
And, we have a trailer...
2 comments:
You should not underestimate the power of Joel harnessing the bully pulpit of the Revival Kickstarter. A *lot* of that late activity (more than is usual for Rifftrax), I think can be attributed to that move.
Good point, but I wanted to emphasize the "Bargain" that I think also helped. It'll lead to more Rifftrax fans that will no doubt later become MSTies once the new era begins.
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