The Total Frat Movie Campaign Ends Wednesday, Help Make A Future Hit Today

Rob Fox12 years ago

This past Thursday night, around midnight, I was getting off an airplane at the airport in Austin. I was exhausted, had spent three hours in a middle seat, and as I turned my phone back on upon landing I was greeted by a series of tweets from my always charming followers, informing me that my Missouri Tigers had shit the bed in the NCAA Tournament. Again. Despite all that, I was in an incredible mood. Why? Because I had just returned from Los Angeles, where I spent two days meeting with the Total Frat Movie’s producers, and was more convinced than ever that this movie was going to be incredible.

Why am I more convinced than ever that Total Frat Movie is going to be great? The Total Frat Movie is going to be great, simply put, because everyone working on the movie “gets it.” This isn’t going to be some American Pie: Beta House, shitty, cartoonish representation of Greek Life. There isn’t going to be some gimmicky, villainous nerd house with a super computer plotting to take over the “Greek Council” or some bullshit. There won’t be a bunch of wannabe porn stars posing as college girls in outrageous outfits, flashing their tits around at a completely unrealistic party. Don’t get me wrong, there WILL be tits, a lot of them, but they’ll be real, dammit!

All of that became overwhelmingly apparent during my two days brainstorming with the producers, consultants, director, et al. They want this movie to be an actual representation of Greek Life. They want to keep the voice true to TFM. That’s important.

Also important is that despite what the ticker on our IndieGoGo campaign tells you, we’ve raised a lot of money for this movie. $3.5 million and counting, to be specific, or did you not read the story about our film in The Hollywood Reporter? That might not seem like a lot of money to make a movie with, and if you’re making The Avengers you’d be right. But put that money into perspective, Spring Breakers, starring James Franco, Selena Gomez, Gucci Mane, and Vanessa Hudgens (as herself pretty much) just got made for $2 million. A few years back, the vastly underrated, extremely funny, and star-studded comedy Waiting… was made for $3 million. The list goes on and on.

Not only is it possible to make a good movie with the budget we currently have, it isn’t even uncommon. It’s far more important that the team behind the film have a clear vision and a dedication to that vision. That, I promise you, we do.

So why then, if we’re raising a good amount of money privately, do we even have the crowd-funding campaign? That is a pertinent question, to be sure. I guess the short answer is, we want to see how much we can get, so why not? But that’s not the good answer, or the real one. The real reason is, the more money we can crowd-fund, the more money we’ll be able to raise privately. What a successful crowd-funding campaign demonstrates to potential investors is that there is a built in audience, enthusiastic and willing to spend money on the product. Granted, the crowd funding campaign is far from the only way to prove that. The boatloads of money Rowdy Gentleman brings in is decent proof, as is the fact that our site traffic is off the charts, or that we were named the number one internet comedy destination for college undergrads. But you have to look no further than the recent crowd-funding campaign for a Veronica Mars movie to see what I’m talking about. The campaign to date has raised over $3 million. How much investment do you think that cult hit but ultimately failed TV show is going to garner from studios and investors now? The answer is quite a bit, that budget is going to be a lot higher than $3 million. Way to get outspent by CW loving geeds, congrats guys.

The closer we can point enthusiasm towards the actual film, the more effective it will be. So if you want to help us make a brilliant fraternity film, of which there have been roughly three in the history of cinema, which is a damn shame, throw us a few bucks. If you’d rather wait until we’ve notched a win and jump on the bandwagon then, that’s fine too, I understand that that’s the speed quite a few of you operate at.

The campaign ends this Wednesday. Donate Today. Help us make the film you all deserve.

We appreciate your help.