James Franco Wants Your Money! Crowdraising $500K To Make 3 Movies

(Newser)
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James Franco would like to make three films, based on his own short stories, and he would like you to pay for them. Yes, Franco is the latest celebrity to turn to crowdfunding rather than traditional financing for a project (a trend that’s sometimes successful, sometimes really not), but he’s using Indiegogo rather than popular platform Kickstarter. The movies would be based on Palo Alto, Franco’s 2010 book of stories about “high school experiences” in his California hometown, Deadline reports, and he needs $ 500,000 to make them.

If you don’t think Franco needs your money, think again. “Because of who I am, people often believe that it is easy to find investors and distributors for my films. Unfortunately, things aren’t that easy,” he explains on Indiegogo. “More times than not, I have put in my own money to produce my films and my students’ films. However, this time it’s different; we need more funding. I will still fund part of it, but I need of your help; filming three feature films back-to-back requires more funding than I can give.” Contribute $ 75, and you’ll get “A YEARBOOK PHOTO OF JAMES from Palo Alto High School.” For $ 300, you get a print of one of Franco’s own original paintings—or for $ 7,000, get the original.