Justice League Fanfilm Kickstarter Tempts Fate – And Warner Bros

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Btc8suerE

A few months ago, you have may seen this fan trailer for a theoretical DC Universe film about the various DC live action universes crossing over. It took clips from pretty much every DC live action film and TV show ever, and made a "what if?" trailer for some sort of Crisis. Fans loved it. I did.

The creator of those trailers, Jack Sargent, aka @ultrasargent, now hopes to go from editing existing footage of Warner Bros properties to making a CGI animated feature without any experience in the field, using crowdfunding to get started. He launched a kickstarter for a CGI animated short film with an original "Crisis" inspired story. As of the time I wrote this article, he's found nearly a dozen backers willing to put money towards his $35,607 goal.

I adore fans who have enthusiasm and want to execute fun projects! More power to them! But if he genuinely believes a disclaimer that the film is non-profit will prevent Warner Bros from crushing his dreams with extreme prejudice, he's got another thing coming. The scale of what he wants to try here, and the fact that he's asking fans to donate money… I don't expect this project to make it to the end of the 57 days he's expecting the kickstarter campaign to run.

But setting aside any potential legal issues, here's the real reason no one should give this man any money.

He mentions that his credentials towards producing a 30 minute animated short feature is that he's got a degree in literature, and made popular YouTube trailers. I hope I don't have to explain that it's difficult to make a film without any actual experience. Let alone an animated one. Had he linked to short animated films he's worked on in the past, or given a list of people with experience that have agreed to work on the project, perhaps there would be some reason to trust Alex Sargent with your money. But just because you can write a script doesn't mean you can produce a film. A 30 minute CGI film. With other people's intellectual property. In the kickstarter, he lists the only potential delays to his project as coming from animators and modellers working behind schedule. Not "Am biting off more than I could possibly chew by leaping before I can walk."

If you want to make a big budget film, start small first. Get experience! Do shorter films, prove that you have what it takes. Don't try to start off with a 30 minute animated project and ask people to fund it if you don't know you can do it yet! Kickstarters work when the public trusts the people running them, when they know that if they give money to them, the money will result in the project they supported coming to fruition. This project gives no reason to suspect it would succeed, even if Warner Bros decided to let them go at it.