RiffTrax Launches Annual Kickstarter For Live Show, Featuring 'Point Break'

It’s time for Rifftrax Rifftrax Rifftrax! Kevin, Mike and Bill are at it again!

It’s that time of year again! RiffTrax, the movie riffing troupe composed of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy have launched their annual Kickstarter to fund their live show. After RiffTrax was founded in 2006, live shows began in 2009 featuring all sorts of schlock. Thanks to COVID leading to 2020 being skipped, this is their 15th year doing live shows. This year’s targeted film is quite the big get: Point Break.

It’s very likely you’ve heard of Point Break, the 1990s cult classic about bank robbing, presidential masks, and surfing. That says a lot considering how obscure some of the films they usually do can be. If you don’t know the film, here’s Rifftrax’s given plot summary: “Johnny Utah is an FBI agent who embarks on an unconventional assignment: the agency needs him to learn how to surf in order to stop the Ex-Presidents, a gang of armed robbers who will stop at nothing to make off with millions of dollars just in time to catch some sweet waves at high tide.“ Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, features Keanu Reeves between the first two Bill & Ted movies, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, and because it’s the ’90s, skydiving and Anthony Kiedis.

This year’s campaign is a full five weeks, ending on April 8 at 11 PM Eastern. Goals like this year’s $350,000 are typically met within 24 hours of launch. According to the FAQ, it is because Point Break is such a higher profile film that the goal is 40% higher than that of last year’s offering, RAD. Mike, Kevin, and Bill will riff Point Break live at the State Theatre in Minneapolis on July 27, and will be shown to over 700 movie theaters nationwide on Thursday, August 8 with an encore on Tuesday, August 13 through Fathom Events, who have been the distributors in most if not all years prior.

There are a lot of reward levels and many of the biggest have sold out in the time it took me to write, with 16 people grabbing VIP Guest of Honor at $2,395, 3 people already laying claim to the scripts Mike, Bill and Kevin will use on show night for $1,095, five people getting to contribute riffs for $775 with a Kickstarter Guest Writer credit, 5 others getting to write a pre-show slide at the $675 level and a “Kickstarter Guest Slide Writer“ credit, and 79 pledgers getting their face on the big screen. Higher-tier rewards still available at writing include Kevin writing a jingle at a $975 reward level, Mike doing an Underpants Guy drawing at $595, Bill writing a limerick for $495, $225 8x10 autographs, an invitation to a show planning session for $150, and an exclusive shirt for $130. As always, the lower tier rewards include a thank you at $5, a shorts collection at $10, joined by a digital gift certificate at $20, and show packages at $40 and $60. For full details, head to the Kickstarter.

In the 15 years of doing RiffTrax Live, this will be the 35th show. That means they’ve been averaging 2 shows a year, with peak production being four shows a year from 2014 (Sharknado, 1998’s Godzilla, Anaconda, 1959’s Santa Claus) through 2016 (Time Chasers, The MST3K Reunion Show, Mothra, and Carnival of Souls), with The Room, Sharknado 2: The Second One, Miami Connection and Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny in 2015. Being down to a single film, two reasons have been given for this. On Twitter on February 23, quote tweeting a user claiming they “aren’t even trying anymore, they stated “We LOVE RiffTrax Live, but the pace we were doing a few years ago was unsustainable. We're a small team trying to concentrate on making RiffTrax Live a special experience.” before expressing excitement for what they ultimately revealed today. In the FAQ, they answered the why one show with attributing it to “the current state of the theatrical film industry”, and the difficulty of making the shows happen. However, they did emphasize the return of the encore that had been missing from the last couple of years.

Source: Kickstarter