Hollywood is turning to crowdfunding in a big way, with UK-born director, Simon West (Tomb Raider, Con Air) revealing plans to raise £1.8 million funding for his next movie, Salty, by selling shares through equity crowdfunding platform, Syndicate Room.

Crowdfunding the movies

West’s films have taken over a billion dollars at the box office, so a chance to grab a slice of receipts from his next movie venture should attracts some investment.

“During my two decades in the movie business I’ve funded films in a variety of ways, but for this one I was determined to break away from the big budget, big studio model. With the studios’ deep pockets comes bureaucracy that’s inefficient, expensive and which can stifle creativity,” says West.

The minimum investment you can take in West’s movie is £1,000, and those who invest $90,000 or more in the project will be invited to appear in the movie as extras. Investors get their money back if the project breaks even and will receive a share of the profits if any are made. The process has been made possible by the recent US JOBS Act.

Supplementary funding

The director is not crowdfunding all the funding he requires – the rest of his production costs will come from movie pre-sales and tax credits offered by the locations in which filming takes place.

Like many creative industries, Hollywood is becoming more interested in crowdfunding.

Movie business

New San Francisco start-up, Junction, is offering high net worth film fans the chance to invest in big name movies such as Triple Nine, starring Kate Winslet. The USP for Junction is the service sources additional funding for projects which are already in possession of the funds they need.

Hollywood’s interest follows the success of the Kickstarter funding round for the film, Veronica Mars, which raised $5.7 million