The Space Nazis are coming, and it's pretty much all of our fault.
We've been following the story of Iron Sky for a few years now, but, according to Wired the project looks like it's turned a corner, in no small part thanks to fan-supplied funding.
Two years ago a teaser trailer hit YouTube, featuring Nazis in the year 2018 prepping a mass invasion of Earth from their secret moonbase (man oh man, that sentence makes me want to twirl an evil mustache maniacally). 1.3 million views later, a second clip hit, drawing investments from over 50 fans wowed by the video's news-reel, semi-steampunk style.
Filming on Iron Sky moves forward in Australia and Germany this fall, with about 90 percent of the film's $8.5 million budget secured. Any potential profits will be split between the 52 fan investors and 12 traditionally-acquired financiers. Producer Tero Kaukomaa's excitement is palpable: “If we are able to make money, then the crowd who invested will make money, and if that happens, it will speed up the possibility to fund films totally with crowds.”
There's three big reasons why this particular project is important, the first that it's easily the biggest fan-based cinematic project to date. It's maybe the purest and most idealistic method of developing a relationship between moviemaker and moviegoer, by letting them make something together. It follows some of the grassroots, by-the-bootstraps spirit of methods like Kickstarter, with one big difference--there's traditional, big-budget, producer-sourced financing built into this model, as well. It ensures a combination of standard film-making business practices and a sense of a new level of fan community involvement, all at once. This new model could be the best of both worlds.
The second biggie is that this represents a big shift in filmmaking as it intersects with both the maker and made-to-order movements in modern culture. My iPod is customized to be uniquely mine, why not the films I see? There's often a sense of emotional helplessness when fandom wants a movie to be good but finds it wanting somehow (others may call this reaction "whining"). Imagine if the fans themselves had to take ownership over the creative vision of someone like, say, Uwe Boll. When this business becomes less about fans versus creative and becomes a sense of commerce-driven ownership, the whole ballgame changes in exciting ways.
The third reason is it's a film about NAZI REVENGE FROM OUTER SPACE. Seriously. I didn't know anything could be so conceptually out there; it sounds like some sort of death metal-influenced Scorpions cover band. Awesome.
Check out the original two trailers embedded below, and look forward to more where this came from.
