Crowdfunding, especially Kickstarter, has been one of the great successes of the Internet age, enabling creators to ensure they have a market before committing to the expensive parts of producing the product. It works best when the crowdfunding is aiming satisfying the first buyers of the project, with the up front crowdfunding payments covering the fixed costs needed to produce the project for those first buyers. Ideally the project is nearly ready for the (costly) final manufacturing steps at the point it is crowdfunded.
Feature films (both fiction and documentary) have also seen crowdfunding as a way to get indie film projects funded that they are unable to get funded any other way.
Unfortunately multiple aspects of the feature film industry make crowdfunding feature films problematic, and it seems to inevitably lead to considerably unhappiness on all sides. Having backed a bunch of feature film crowdfunding projects, and watched others from a distance, it rarely seems to work out well outside the ultra low budget "one person and a camera doing it all themselves, releasing only to the crowdfunding backers" area.
Some of the film industry specific problems with crowdfunding are:
feature films, even low budget indie feature films, are very expensive to make (usually a minimum of six to seven figures)
feature films are often crowdfunded at the "we have a script" stage, sometimes even before that (so funded very early on, not "just manufacturing left"), which make the budgets even less well known
it is very difficult to raise six or seven figures on a crowdfunding platform with little more than concepts to show for the project, so the feature film crowdfunding budget is normally set much lower than what is needed to finish the feature film
indie feature film crowdfunding campaigns rarely disclose that what is being raised by crowdfunding is (actually) "seed capital" for a project that may or may not be able to go ahead without substantial additional external funding (for fear of putting crowdfunding backers off, leading to even lower crowdfunding)
it is difficult to crowdfund a film without offering the backers a copy of the film when it is finished, or at minimum the chance to see it first before others
because of the high cost of making feature films, creators are almost always aiming at a much bigger market than they can sell to years in advance, such as film festivals, theatrical release, or mass market distribution. That broader distribution usually becomes the primary focus. This contrasts with most other crowdfunding where satisfying the buyers through crowdfunding is the primary goal, as those are most or all of the buyers (with the rare "breakout to mass market" exception for some very successful projects).
the main source of later stage feature film funding is selling the "nearly completed" project distribution rights (for theatrical or streaming distribution), normally only possible very late in the project when all but the final polish is done
feature film distributors traditionally want exclusivity, at least for the initial release period, which usually directly conflicts with earlier promises made to crowdfunding backers of downloadable copies "on release" or first to see via streaming
there are few other source of funding to finish the feature film, so indie feature film creators seem to inevitably sell out the promises made to their crowdfunding backers, leading to substantial delays in fulfilling the crowdfunding "rewards" (ie, up front promises). Even after the feature film is 100% finished and ready for release, there are usually additional delays before crowdfunding backers see anything. (Typically these delays are at least 1-2 years additional delay, on a project usually already finishing years after it was originally promised)
even indie feature films take a very long time to make (several years minimum) which is usually well beyond the delayed gratification timeline of even the most enthusiastic backers, so the promised timelines in the crowdfunding are inevitably the most optimistic possible timeline, and are typically missed by multiple years
there is also an awkward funding gap between the "seed funding" obtained by crowdfunding (with or without acknowledging that is what they are doing) and the distribution funding obtained at the end. Which can stall a project for many additional years, while the indie feature film creators struggle to find any additional funding to complete the next steps.
While it seems likely that most, if not all, indie feature film creators mean well when they run a crowdfunding campaign, the structure of the industry means that the timelines are missed by many years, and the crowdfunding backers -- almost by definition those most interested in seeing the feature film, willing to pay years in advance in the hope of seeing it first -- are prevented from seeing the film they funded with an implied "see it first", until well after the film is finished.
All of which inevitably means puts the crowdfunding creators and the crowdfunding backers into conflict, years after the project was funded, that only mounts up after the creator announces the film is finished but refuses -- often for years -- to let the backers see the finished film.
It's one thing to have a very delayed crowdfunding project -- that is common for anything except "order molds, manufacture, ship" projects -- but backers will understand while a creator is still working on the project.
However when a creator announces they project is "finished" and they have stopped working on it, but refuses to release the project or complete the backer rewards, that crowdfunding backer understanding of the delays fades away.
Those "post completion" delays feel unfair, because they directly contradict what was promised up front in order to secure the crowdfunding. And for some reason the creators typically seem very surprised by the reaction they get to announcing that "the project is finished, but you cannot have it" (in the way that was promised at the beginning).
Having backed a bunch of indie feature film crowdfunded projects, at this point I will not back any more feature film projects (except perhaps as a "no reward expected" small donation).
If you see an indie feature film crowdfunded project it is typically vastly better for everyone to just make a note of the title and check back in 5 years or so to see if it got made.
Most failed crowdfunding projects disappear, but the good ones manage to find other project funding and finish the film in a more traditional manner. They might return to crowdfunding at the end of the project to, eg, crowdfund producing physical media (eg, DVD / BluRay) -- at which point is is much more like successful crowdfunding as they just need to order production and the timelines are very predictable.
Feature film crowdfunding that caused conflict
Below are a couple of crowdfunding campaigns that I backed which ended up very delayed and either entirely refused to provide backer "rewards" or are still delaying providing any backer "rewards" 18+ months after finishing the project. And then in some later sections some that are still ongoing years late with patient backers waiting, or were more (eventually) successful in releasing the feature film to backers.
Blind Panic
Blind Panic is a feature length thriller based in Aotearoa by Mark Willis (director, co-writer) and Matthew Mawkes (producer, crowdfunder, co-writer). Mark Willis had directed one short film (and been assistant director on a couple more shorts) before starting Blind Panic (source: IMDB). Matthew Mawkes had produced one short film before starting on Blind Panic (source: IMDB). So as best I can tell Blind Panic was their first feature film.
Blind Panic was crowdfunded in 2016 on Kickstarter, just making its ultra low crowdfunding goal (NZ$40,000; so around US$20,000) after some in person appeals at the likes of the Wellington Film Society screenings (which is how I heard about the film). That NZ$40,000 budget turned out to be substantially too small, so the film completion was repeatedly delayed by years at a time trying to raise funding to complete the next steps (re-shoots, editing, colour grading, film score, etc).
Blind Panic was finally completed in 2025 (9 years later), and premiered at the Terror-Fi Film Festival in Wellington in October 2025. Sadly this was a few years after director/co-writer Mark Willis passed away (in May 2023, so Mark Willis never got to see the finished film get released.
The IMDB reviews, with a user review average of 5.8, feel about right -- it turned out a pretty good ultra low budget indie film, but it definitely shows that it is a low budget film. Worth seeing, especially if you are local to the Wellington region and likely to recognise some of the locations.
In March 2026, Blind Panic was released to streaming services, as its primary distribution.
Immediately prior to that, on 2026-03-02, the producer Matthew Mawkes directly emailed the Kickstarter backers offering a limited time (one week) streaming preview of the film (via Vimeo). That was the first opportunity any Kickstarter backers had to see the film, unless they were able to make it to one of the Terror-Fi Film Festival screenings (and pay again to see the film screened in a theatre).
In that 2026-03-02 email, Matthew Mawkes claimed "one of the rewards we promised you was the chance to see the finished movie upon release".
But that was not actually true.
None of the Kickstarter rewards promised "the chance to see the finished movie upon release".
Instead many of the rewards promised "THE COMPLETE MOVIE UPON RELEASE via digital download" (caps in original), and one very high tier reward promised "SEE THE MOVIE BEFORE ANYONE ELSE! You will get access to a special online screening of the film before the premiere" (ie well before "upon release").
In reality the time limited streaming access offered was just a (nice) bonus offering to backers, in advance of the actual Kickstarter rewards being delivered.
So I replied to that email, the same day, and pointed out that the backers were actually promised a "digital download", and asking if that would be available in 2026.
Matthew Mawkes replied back late that same day saying he was waiting for the film to be on streaming sites in Aotearoa:
[t]hen I can look into that digital download option for you. Just nervous about the download option at the moment with so many films ending up on torrent sites. But I will make a note to get in touch again when that is available.
Which seemed reasonable to me, as I was not very attached to the "at release" part of the promised reward, after nearly ten years. So I made myself a reminder to check in again in three months.
Having not heard anything further, three months later (June 2026) I replied to the email to follow up and ask about the timing of the digital downloads again. Matthew Mawkes replied late that same day with the surprising claim that:
As part of fulfilling the Kickstarter rewards, we provided all eligible backers with a free screening window to watch the complete film upon release. This fulfilled the “digital download” component of the reward, as the full movie was delivered digitally and made available to view in full.
And:
The backer rewards were completed with the screening access already provided.
Any reasonable definition of "digital download" involves the purchaser being able to... download the film, something which was disabled on the Vimeo time limited preview screening (and the Vimeo access password was changed to enforce the short time limit).
An extremely time limited preview screening also gives purchases no opportunity to rewatch the film later, which is one of the primary purposes of purchasing the download version of a film (to keep on your own computer) rather than simply watching once via one-off streaming access.
So it is not at all credible to claim that an online screening preview "fulfilled the 'digital download”" reward.
I pushed back firmly at that surprising new claim, pointing out that I was willing to wait until 2027, for the downloaded version, if the distribution agreements were preventing completing the download rewards in 2026 (something which had happened with other feature film crowdfunding).
Matthew Mawkes then switched to just repeatedly asking for my bank account information so he could refund me. After the third such request (one on 2026-06-08, and two on 2026-06-10) I gave in and sent him my bank account information.
Matthew Mawkes refunded the face value of my pledge (NZ$50), and marked the pledge as cancelled in Kickstarter.
I did not cancel the pledge myself, and actually pointed out I would prefer not to take more money out of the film's budget; instead Matthew Mawkes insisted on cancelling it, over my protests, when asked about the timing for providing backer rewards originally promised.
Due to inflation, NZ$50 in 2016 would need about NZ$67 in 2026 to have the same buying power, so effectively I paid about NZ$17 (in 2026 dollars) to get "behind the scenes updates" for 10 years, and a one-off streaming viewing of the film. Which feels like approximately what it was worth, but I would have felt a lot better about it if I had just found the film on streaming services in 2026 instead of experiencing the 10 years of delays, and a producer who refused to honour promises made in 2016 and then getting hostile about it.
It is obviously difficult to know whether Matthew Mawkes decided in 2016, when the film was crowdfunded, that he would refuse to make a download version available to backers (which would then arguably make it misleading advertising to promote the "COMPLETE MOVIE UPON RELEASE via digital download"), or whether Matthew Mawkes decided ten years later, in 2026, perhaps as a result of distribution agreements he decided to sign, that he was going to refuse to ever fulfill the "digital download" reward (which would confirm the unsuitability of feature films for traditional crowdfunding).
But either way it turned what could have been a "successful crowdfunding, eventually" story into a failure case :-/
Ironically, as of mid June 2026 it seems like Blind Panic is no longer available on movie streaming services (or anywhere else as far as I can tell). Even the official website just says "coming to streaming services soon", and the streaming sites that still list it indicate the streaming rights have expired. Despite the fact that the film was on streaming services just a few months ago, as the official distribution.
Also ironically, the "OFFICIAL THANK YOU" part of the reward, which was not in the film credits and only on the website (eg, in 2017) was removed from the website well before the movie was released. (Last archived version of the "thank-you" page is 2019, about 6 years before the release of the film.) And as of the point when I was ejected from the Kickstarter, by the producer Matthew Mawkes, "THE FILM'S ORIGINAL SCORE" reward had also not been delivered to backers (ie, 8 months after the film premiere).
Matthew Mawkes noted that "it is a miracle that the movie was finished at all", which I would agree with.
The budget raised (NZ$40000) was massively too small to complete the project they seemingly actually wanted to complete (which I would guess needed NZ$150,000-NZ$200,000 to finish, and would still have been an ultra low budget film).
But the Risks and Challenges section of the Kickstarter gave no indication of just how unrealistically low the budget was to complete what was promised. Or just how unrealistic the "estimated delivery" of "Sep 2017" (1 year!) was to complete the feature film they actually had in mind (which in reality took took 9 years to complete).
A 1 year timeframe, and a NZ$40,000 budget, for a feature film implies something like a "grown up" version of the "48 hour film festival" shorts, entirely DIY in a compressed time frame, and done in an ultra-low-budget style.
In reality the NZ$40,000 raised by crowdfunding functioned much more like seed funding for a larger project that Mark Willis and Matthew Mawkes apparently wanted to complete, with the final funding gaps closed by distribution rights agreements that apparently blocked fulfilling the originally promised backer rewards. The results I think were probably worth the money spent, but I have a feeling the project is unlikely to break even, let alone make a profit. And the crowdfunding backers got only a small subset of the promised rewards, even after the film was eventually finished.
Arcade Dreams
Arcade Dreams is a three episode (later five episode) documentary series about arcade games from pinball and other mechanical games through the video arcades of the 1980s and beyond. It was crowdfunded by director Zachary Weddington in late 2020, raising a little over its goal of around US$100,000. Zachary Weddington had made one previous feature length documentary, also crowdfunded (and apparently followed a similar "much delayed" pattern to Arcade Dreams).
Estimated delivery was mid 2022, roughly 18 months after the crowdfunding closed. As of mid 2026, the documentary series has not been released to backers, nor has it seen any general release.
Production of the documentary series was basically done by late 2023, and in August 2024 they were telling backers they were "still planning to release Arcade Dreams this year". By September 2024 they had a formal offer from a distribution company, and it seemed quite promising but did not turn into an actual release in 2024.
Throughout 2025 (eg, March 2025, June 2025, September 2025, October 2025) Zachary Weddington gave the impression the documentary series would be released in 2025. Including in October 2025 saying "Arcade Dreams will be released by the end of the year at the latest".
None of that happened, and project updates on Kickstarter went silent from October 2025 until May 2026 when Zachary Weddington told backers "We are still moving forward" and that he hoped to hear from the distributors in May 2026. Since there has been no update for over 2 weeks since May 2026 ended, I assume he did not hear back from the distributors.
So essentially the project was mostly finished two and a half years ago (give or take some final polish and legal clearances), then got sold to a distributor who among other things bought the right to determine when it got released. And as a result, nothing has been released, there is no known timeline for a release, and backers have only seen short teaser snippets (a few minutes here and there) of the finished project.
Like Blind Panic above, the US$100,000 budget was clearly too small for what Zachary Weddington ended up wanting to make, so other funds were raised in larger chunks from independent backers, and then (I assume) yet more from the distributor to enable finishing the project. At a guess the total budget was more like US$250,000 to US$300,000 (still a fairly "indie production", but well above what was crowdfunded). That extra money came with restrictions which meant the original backers have yet to see much for their money put down 6 years ago.
To their credit, the Kickstarter Risks and Challenges section does say:
The number one risk for any project like this is going over-schedule or over-budget.
But they immediately followed that by saying:
We’ve structured the project with a realistic budget and time-frame based on the work we’ve already done on this project and comparable projects in the past.
none of which actually seems to be true in hindsight. The money and time budget really required seems to be at least 3x higher than what was originally allowed. And the project clearly expanded further in scope during the production process.
It remains unclear if the (basically finished apart from final clearances) documentary series will ever get released, and even if it does it will be at minimum of four years after the indicative release timeline and a couple of years after backers were told the documentary series was finished.
Understandably several of the crowdfunding backers are frustrated at being told the documentary was finished 18+ months ago, and yet still none of the backer rewards have been fulfilled. And it seems like Zachary Weddington surrendered control over the timing of releasing anything to crowdfunding backers to get additional (distribution) funding :-/
(Arcade Dreams by Zachary Weddington should not be confused with the Jason Scott planned documentary of the same name from about a decade earlier; Jason Scott passed on the documentary name to Zachary Weddington after Jason Scott decided not to go ahead with making a documentary about gaming arcades, due to day job time commitments.)
Very delayed, over budget, but still working on the project
Recently Deceased: The Making of Beetlejuice
"Recently Deceased: The Making of Beetlejuice" is a fan made "making of" documentary, that was Kickstarted by Fred China in March 2019, raising about 50% more than its ultralow budget target of EUR 20,000 (just over EUR 30,000 raised). Even the higher amount raised really was not enough for the scope of the project (especially at the historical distance it was being made), and unsurprisingly the project has proved rather large to be a single person project.
The original release target of December 2020 (so about 22 months from funding) was fairly optimistic even before the Covid-19 Pandemic restrictions interfered with everything in the world.
To his credit Fred China has kept working away on the project, posting periodic updates, and as of May 2026 is nearly at a point of completing the planned "making of" documentary. Unfortunately due to spending "nights and weekends", as well as periods of full time, on the project it sounds like it is well over budget for the EUR 30,000 raised, even without considering things like producing and shipping physical media as was originally planned.
I am hopeful that the project will get declared "finished" and released to backers, possibly even in 2026.
But the most recent update (May 2026) concludes with the comment that "[h]opefully the next newsletter would be about a future deal with a distributor", so I suspect this may be another project that closes the funding gap by selling the project to a distributor... who then exercises control over when it is released, and when the original backers even get to see the documentary they funded 7+ years ago.
The Myst Documentary
"The Myst Documentary" is also basically a fan made "making of" about the Myst game series, funded on Kickstarter in July/August 2020, raising about US$260,000 (somewhat above the funding target of US$200,000).
Philip Shane, the Director and Kickstarter Creator, does have a fairly extensive history in documentary film making, and is a fan of the games, so even though it was originally funded as a "low budget indie" film it is also very much a passion project, which hopefully will mean the documentary does (eventually) get finished.
The original aim was to complete the project by December 2022 (and they were funding in the midst of the initial parts of the Covid-19 pandemic so at least knew what they were getting themselves into with regard to schedule disruptions).
However the project used up all of its budget by about 2023/2024, without having a completed project to show for it, and has been hunting for substantial additional funding ever since. Work has gradually continued on the project as a backburner item, including starting editing the already shot footage together. And there have been annual updates at the Mysterium Convention showing a bit more progress each time.
To their credit the Risks and Challenges section of the Kickstarter does say:
It’s possible that additional time and/or funding would be needed to complete the film in its later stages.
but for an experienced film making that feels fairly soft pedalling what seems, in hindsight, to be the near certainty of needing to raise substantial additional funding to complete the project.
I am fairly convinced that Philip Shane wants to finish the documentary eventually (since it comes across as a passion project), but it seems likely to take at least a few more years. Hopefully by 2028 or 2030 or 2032 it might be finished.
Unfortunately it also seems extremely likely that it will eventually get finished enough to sell into distribution, coming with its own restrictions on backers being able to see the finished project. (Which is unfortunate as the approximately 3000 backers of the Kickstarter funding are probably the exact people in the world who most want to see the documentary, and likely to end up being the last to be able to see it -- at least without it appearing in a Film Festival or streaming service near them and paying again to watch the documentary.)
Completed, backers got their rewards well after the film was completed
MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound
"MAKING WAVES: The Art of Cinematic Sound" is a documentary about the place of sound in cinema. It was crowdfunded in mid 2017 by "Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet Corp.", a group of film lecturers and professors, and someone from industry.
The Kickstarter raised about twice their goal -- about US$135,000 raised, on a goal of just over US$70,000. And for once that budget, plus whatever they raised through distribution, seems to have been sufficient.
The original plan was to provide backer rewards around August 2018 (so about 1 year after funding), but backer rewards did not actually ship until January 2020. However backers did get to see an online streaming preview a few months earlier in October 2019.
Unfortunately those backer rewards, including the online streaming, came after the documentary had been through the Film Festival circuit and plenty of other people had seen the film. That was one of the few crowdfunded films that I paid again to see in the 2019 NZIFF Film Festival, months before the Kickstarter backers got online streaming access. It was somewhat disappointing to have paid for what I assumed at the time would be to be one of the first to see the documentary, only to find out that they were planning to leave fulfilling backer rewards until after the film was fairly widely released.
I guess the Film Festival screenings probably considerably helped the documentary's budget. But the choice to do that before providing anything to the backers who funded the film, and delay the backer rewards by 12-18 months, illustrates one of the disadvantages of the feature film industry for crowdfunding backers.
The plan to use film festival screenings in advance of (late) backer rewards was not disclosed up front. Indeed the Risks and Challenges section of the Kickstarter page says:
In summary, we say with total confidence - when the Kickstarter campaign succeeds, the film will be made; and all rewards will be delivered fully and on a timely basis.
which was an excess of confidence, as the documentary was not even finished until a year after the planned backer reward date, and not delivered to backers until several months after that completion.
I suspect the (first time) creators were just over optimistic in their ability, and did not take into account the reality of film distribution processes impacting fulfilling backer rewards.
But that experience (of having to pay again to see a film I had already paid for) was part of what started making me wary of feature film crowdfunding in general.
Keeper of Time
"Keeper of Time" is a feature length documentary about mechanical time keeping, especially the mechanical watch making. It was crowdfunded in late 2018 raising a little over its US$100,000 budget.
Backers were promised rewards in late 2019 (so a little over a year after crowdfunding), which proved to be quite overoptimistic.
The documentary eventually premiered in April 2022 to an in-person New York audience, although it had been finished quite some time before that (around May 2021). I assume that the distribution process again delayed the release of the documentary, in this case by about a year.
To their credit, the creators provided backers with a download (from Vimeo) at the same time that the film premiered. Although it was a very short duration download -- 24-48 hours only -- after which backers were instead given a code for unlimited streaming, also from Vimeo. (This contrasts with Blind Panic which only provided backers with a short duration streaming link, instead of even a permanent access streaming link, and waited until 6 months after the premiere to do so.)
Feature film crowdfunding success stories
When we were Apollo
"When we were Apollo" is a feature documentary about the Apollo program, originally crowdfunded in late 2017, and then followed by a second crowdfunding campaign a year later in 2018 to be able to complete the project. Between the two crowdfunding campaigns it raised about US$55,000, entirely from crowdfunding.
The original goal of backer rewards by February 2019 (to be early for the Apollo 50th Anniversary) slipped a bit, but backers had a downloadable version (a true "digital download"!) to watch by July 2019 and the physical media rewards followed (from memory) late in 2019.
Other than the need for a second Kickstarter to get enough funds to finish the project (which honestly felt like a good way to handle the short fall, and raised about 75% again over the first Kickstarter), the project seemed a very successful Kickstarter.
Zachary Weil, the creator and director, went on to make another space-related documentary for PBS (funded by PBS) -- When We Were Shuttle, and started a third space-related documentary in 2025 ("Erased for Space").
While Zachary Weil has since scaled back that third film project ("Erased for Space") to a YouTube series, he was clear in the Kickstarter "Budget and Timeline" section that the funding was clear that it was to "support an initial round of production", which did happen, rather than specifically to release the documentary to completion.
I suspect that "initial round of production" caveat, in the middle of the long crowdfunding description, took some backers by surprise, but given the honesty in the previous Kickstarters and producing "two documentaries for the price of one" I was at least willing to back the third Kickstarter at a "donation to get you started" level ("digital deluxe") without expecting to see anything more from the crowdfunding. So any "Erased for Space" parts released to YouTube will be a bonus.
First to the Moon: The Story of Apollo
"First to the Moon" is a also a feature documentary about the Apollo programme, specifically about Apollo 8 which was the first mission to fly around the moon.
The documentary had an earlier unsuccessful Kickstarter, which got to a similar US$65,000 amount but failed because the original goal was US$100,000; and then a second Kickstarter funding round successfully raised a similar approximately US$65,000 for the project (on a lower US$50,000 goal). That is a fairly clear indication of the difficulty of raising a realistic feature film budget via crowdfunding -- the crowdfunding only succeeded by halving the budget from "low" to "very low".
Backer rewards were aiming for February 2019 (also to meet the Apollo 50th anniversary), and did ship around June 2019 so relatively on time. Looking back at the backer updates it appears that there was a film distribution deal that delayed the release slightly (from May 2019 to June 2019), but compared with many other crowdfunded films that was a very minor delay due to film distribution.
Overall the documentary was completed, pretty much on time, and the backers got their rewards also pretty much on time, so I have quite positive memories of this crowdfunding project. And it stands out as somewhat unique for that reason.
Heart of Neon
"Heart of Neon" is a feature documentary about Jeff Minter and his very colourful games.
There was an initial attempt to crowdfund it in late 2019 which came up well short of its goal (getting about US$27,000 in pledges on a goal of around US$100,000).
To his credit, Paul Docherty, director and crowdfunder did not give up, and:
separately raised the money to be able to make the documentary; and
once the documentary was finished came back to Kickstarter in 2025 for funding to produce physical media for the documentary
The aim of the second Kickstarter was to ship physical media in August 2025, which slipped a bit, as projects do. But the download version was available to backers in October 2025, and the physical media shipped to backers around March 2026.
While it is unfortunate that crowdfunding did not manage to fund this documentary up front, it does demonstrate that arriving at Kickstarter with a completed documentary that just needs to be released greatly speeds up the process from the perspective of the crowdfunding backer, and dramatically reduces the risk to the backer of not getting the rewards.
Since I backed the original 2019 campaign, I can tell it still took about 5-6 years to make the documentary (with independent funding). But by the time the physical media part was successfully crowdfunded it was just a manufacturing problem, and not a "delays of making a feature film" problem.
Mixed results
8-bit Generation
This was intended to be a trilogy of documentaries, by the same creators, but it did not work out that way.
The story is also murkier because my understanding is that this was the second attempt by these creators to crowdfund the first two documentaries, and the first attempt (to crowdfund the first two documentaries together) did not result in anything getting to backers. (Apparently they eventually refunded some backers, who asked for refunds.)
Growing the 8-bit Generation
"Growing the 8-bit Generation" is a feature documentary about the early home computers, which was crowdfunded in mid 2015. It raised about EUR 40,000 (about 50% higher than its EUR 25,000 budget).
The aim was to complete the project by about February 2016 (which seems unrealistically short now I look at it -- about 7-8 months!), and they did manage to have streaming-only versions available to backers by about March 2016 which is fairly impressive in hitting timing projections. However the final backer physical rewards shipped about a year late, around mid 2017.
So basically a fairly successful project, although possibly helped by being (to my understanding) the second attempt to complete the documentary.
Easy to Learn, Hard to Master -- The Fate of Atari
"Easy to Learn, Hard to Master -- The Fate of Atari" is a feature documentary about the Atari company. It was crowdfunded in mid 2016, shortly after the first documentary had been released, and raised about EUR 25,000.
The aim was to complete the project by about February 2017 (again a fairly short turn around), and backers did get to see an online version of the documentary on time, around February 2017. Physical media was shipped in the second half of 2017, which is also fairly close to the intended timeline.
So also basically a fairly successful project.
Firing Steve Jobs
Having produced two documentaries with footage they already had they then went on to try to crowdfund a third documentary based on other parts of that existing footage, capitialising on the fact that Steve Jobs had recently passed away.
The crowdfunding on Kickstarter in mid 2017 did not get enough momentum and they cancelled the Kickstarter at about 20% of their target.
Then they switched to Indiegogo, to try again with a EUR 0 minimum, and raised about half the amount of the Kickstarter and 10% of their original budget.
The claimed in March 2018 that:
we are thrilled to publicly announce that also this third documentary will be available and finished this fall
and:
Despite will not probably meet the public goal we have reached an external agreement that gives us the opportunity to work and finish also this documentary.
but absolutely nothing has ever been produced from that crowdfunding campaign.
Eventually a few years later (in 2021) a backer noted that they had announced on their Facebook page that:
Quick news worth sharing: please note that one of the two creators, Tomaso Walliser, died few weeks ago.
In practice I think that 2021 passing almost certainly means that nothing will be produced, which is something of a sad end to a trilogy of three documentaries.
That experience had made me particularly wary of projects which fail on Kickstarter and then switch to Indiegogo "flexible funding" (ie, take all your money even if it is not enough to do the project). Indiegogo by itself is an okay funding platform, but switching from a funding failure to "flexible funding" is in hindsight a huge warning sign that the project will not be completed and the money given in funding will just disappear.
I do not know if the creators intended to ever actually make the third documentary, but the fact that they never posted any updates to the crowdfunding campaign after it was funded, for 8+ years, seems to at least indicate they lost interest and were not inclined to try to complete anything, or refund anyone.
Unfortunately of the three "8-Bit Generation" films, the third one was my largest contribution, and I just had to entirely write that off as a learning experience.
Conclusion
There are a few other feature films that I helped crowdfund, but the above is more than enough to give a flavour for the problems of crowdfunding feature films.
Even where the crowdfunding is successful, the feature films are often at much much earlier stage when they are crowdfunded than many other projects (books, music, physical items) which dramatically increases the chances of going over budget (time and money) in ways the creators do not anticipate and do not warn backers about up front.
Then the film industry distribution tends to take over and start dictating release processes and schedules, usually completely ignoring the backers who provided the original funding for the project so that the original backers end up feeling like an afterthought.
Often this ends up with the creators simultaneously announcing "the project is finished" and also "you cannot have it", which as a backer feels extremely unfair. And a very poor way to treat the very people who most wanted to see the film you are producing.
In most cases I do not think the creators set out to create this unfair situation, but their actions of prioritising their own desires (eg, mass distribution of their film, additional income) over the promises they made -- often years in the past -- inherently creates that resentment. And few creators seem to even acknowledge that they caused that resentment through their actions, even if it might not have been their primary intention.