The meme for the hilarious movie “It’s All Good” is the true tale of worthless millennials that crowdfund $77,000, partied the cash away, then got attacked by their donors.
The Chicago-based FND Films comedy troupe that including Aaron Fronk, Vinny DeGaetano and Cooper Johnson created an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in 2014 for their first film. They had hoped to raise $72,000, but actually pocketed over $77,000.
But then the crew took the money and disappeared without ever giving the donors any updates on the movie or their fate. But in mid-September, FND Films went on YouTube to post a video apologizing that due to “complications and elements beyond their control”, the movie could not be completed. The complications seemed to be FND partying.
The video apology caused lots of outrage, until FND Films acknowledged that the “real” movie plot for “It’s All Good” is a comedy about their own wacky venture as millennial losers that teamed to raise $77k on Indiegogo, but blew most of the cash on cocaine, limousines, champagne, and hookers. They claim they finally had to actually make the film because some of their unsavory donors got rough and forced them to finish the flick.
FND President Fronk told Esquire the prank was planned from the start and it was very stressful to keep the plot secret for two and a half years. “We felt this was a unique move, something that had the potential to get big, so we ran with it,” Fronk added:
“The whole thing has been a tricky process—we were constantly worried about blowing it. We needed a catalyst for why the money was gone, but you have to ride the line where it’s a believable scenario–Lying to people for two and a half years is rough—we’ve had to take a hit in our careers because we wanted to make it look like we disappeared. We couldn’t tell certain actors in the film what the movie was about, and you’ve got these people who donated thousands of dollars based on the most vague pitch that you can’t clue them in. I’ve so badly wanted to say, ‘No no no, it’s just a joke.’”
As the first crowdfunding, the real Indiegogo reports that they have more than 2.5 million people from 226 countries and territories that made over $800 million in cash commitments for 175,479 deals they call “creative, entrepreneurial and cause-related projects.”
Although many crowdfunded deals have gone on to actually make products and services, Indiegogo reports only a couple have gone on to attract venture capital. Like all business start-ups, a huge number of Indiegogo deals end up having low to no return for their donors.
The “It’s All Good” trailer announcing an October 21 release is truly hilarious. It also seems that it will be easy for FND Films to leverage the story line into a great cable comedy series about how dumb and crooked crowdfunders squander their donors’ cash in “creative, entrepreneurial and cause-related” partying.
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