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Monday, February 27, 2012

Kickstarter and retro movie comebacks should be combined

I've seen a couple of new things which give me hope for the future. One of them is the Kickstarter process, where people list their projects and collect interested customers. If the project reaches or exceeds the goal within the allotted time, it will be funded. That's the point where everyone actually pays in their money. If there isn't sufficient interest, no money goes anywhere.

This solves the important problem of finding an audience for something and not investing too much effort for something which nobody may want. It's also useful as a clear way to see just what the market will bear at the present time.

There's another interesting thing I've seen in the past couple of years. Classic movies from the '80s have been coming back for 25th anniversary showings. These are handled at the same movie theaters where brand new movies are shown, so you don't have to track down some weird little joint in a scary part of town to see it.

BTTF ticket stub

Also, these things tend to happen in parallel all over the country this way, so a bunch of people can enjoy it no matter where they live. A couple of years ago, AMC had a 25th anniversary showing of Back to the Future. I had watched that movie plenty of times on various TV sets in the interim, but nothing compared to having that movie theater experience again. I hope they also do the second and third movies at their respective 25 year anniversaries.

So here's my take on all of this: these ideas should be combined. If some movie chain gets the idea to bring back a certain movie, they should announce it and see who signs up. If it reaches critical mass, then it should automatically happen, and then you just show up and watch it on the designated day(s).

Why remake the classics when you can just watch the actual classics?