'Mystery Science Theater 3000' Makes Adjustments In Final Days Of Season 14 Crowdfunding Campaign

The end is near! The end is near! But success might look a little different

The crowdfunding campaign for Mystery Science Theater 3000’s fourteenth season has reached its final leg: the Mega Turkey Day Marathon Telethon, which began Thursday morning. However, all parties involved have headed in not on a victory lap. Creator Joel Hodgson saw the writing on the wall and in the same update that brought the announcement of movies 4-6 to text and revealed the marathon listing, also revealed some of the adjustments and compromises being made.

He starts off by acknowledging the fact that not only were there backers of the last campaign spurned by the delays and unexpected additional costs of getting rewards out, but that this one was planned while both the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes were ongoing, and while the writers got their deal by launch, half the campaign still had the actors fighting for theirs. The original $4.8 million base goal (to $7.4 million final stretch goal) reflected wajting to take a specific approach to producing the show. With insufficient support, currently at $2,210,990, a series of hard conversations and examinations to possibly cut every possible corner from the budget, while still being able to make a satisfying and entertaining enough version of the show that crew and viewers would be satisfied with had to occur. These compromises were hoped to be avoided but had to be deployed, for the sake of the show’s future.

First, production would move from Joel and Alternaversal’s home state of Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, where it would be cheaper to shoot. Plus most of the cast, especially Jonah Ray, Felicia Day and Patton Oswalt, is based there, and a much larger, more competitive pool of creative talent would await. While Joel loves to be in the small details of costumes, props and such, Hodgson would be working with those teams remotely, making a different experience than local work, as has been since the show’s initial return with season 11. He does trust that the production designers are so high quality, and they’ll find good west coast vendors that he’s confident the approach can work. This also means that the Alternaversal/Gizmonic Arts would be giving up their offices and workshop in favor of entirely remote work in spite of the benefits of physical office space and workshop, and in person collaboration.

This trimmed about $800,000 from the budget, bringing the total cost of 6 episodes down to $4 million, which while still challenging brought the progress from about 40% when it came down, to 55% as of writing. The commitments to better compensation with a 5% pay increase to accommodate the cost of living for the vendors, writers, and performers and return to physical sets for the host segments (because of COVID, season 13 went to greenscreen) have not gone anywhere. The reason these drastic measures weren’t taken sooner were because they understandably simply hoped they didn’t have to make them.

Source: Showmaker