Zach Braff, Resented by Many Fans, Responds to Kickstarter Criticism

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ABC News cut him a break and let him explain himself.
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Wish I Was Here, Zach Braff’s directorial follow-up to 2004’s Garden State, was partially funded (reportedly $3.1 million out of a $5.5 million budget) by the crowd-funding site Kickstarter. Braff said he went to Kickstarter so he could keep creative control out of the hands of “money people” who wouldn’t have let him control the final cut or pick his choice of a cast.

But, as it turned out, his decision to hit up his fans for cash caused quite the backlash, especially when, in the end, Braff went with a traditional financing deal once the Kickstarter campaign was over. The fans didn’t like it.

And they didn’t like not getting all their promised gifts. Variety reported: “Bryant Woodard… donated about $500. In return, he received a copy of Braff’s latest play. He had still not received autographed memorabilia he’d been promised.”

And there were many like him. But there were about 46, 000 fans who could afford even less. A Wish I Was Here T-shirt went to pledges of $40 or more, art prints (of production stills) to those pledging $60 or more, and a movie logo director’s chair back for $75.

In an interview with BuzzFeed, producer Stacey Sher pleased, “We have hundreds of thousands of dollars of rewards. We’re making T-shirts for 24, 000 people. We have posters for thousands of people. We have screenings in 11 cities around the world with meet-and-greets and Q&As, and Zach is flying to every single one of them. That all has to be budgeted as well.”

Doesn’t sound like fun, and it also doesn’t sound like the goods are making it through the mail fast enough.

So ABC News cut him a break and let him respond. Here goes: