The 'Miss Fisher' Movie: Now The Kickstarter Is Over, What Happens Next?

The Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Kickstarter campaign to help fund the upcoming movie was a smashing success, raising almost three-quarters of a million dollars in Australian currency. So what comes next?

Back in August of this year, we looked at the prospects for the proposed Miss Fisher movie, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, which at that time was functioning on a schedule that, should it be fully funded by Australia's ABC, would begin filming in November, with a release date in late 2018. As we know now, Every Cloud Productions, which produced the original Miss Fisher TV series, did not secure that funding, causing them to launch a Kickstarter this past September to fill the gap.

Said Kickstarter was more successful than they ever imagined. The original funding goal was $250K AU, which is about $192K in US dollars. That goal was hit within the first 48 hours. With the campaign now over, the final total raised is $733,210 AU, which comes to $562,812 US. In total, the project brought aboard 7,763 backers, of which over half, (4,228 to be exact) are from the US, and discovered the show through their local PBS stations like WETA.

So what does that mean for the project? Will we see filming start any day now? Not quite.

If funding had come in August, as originally planned, Every Cloud Productions, plus creators Deb Cox and Fiona Eagger would have spent the last three months working on pre-production. Most movie pre-production scheduled run in the 12-15 week range, which would have put them on track to start filming at the end of this month.

But that's not what happened. Instead, Every Cloud, Cox, and Eagger have spent the last month working on their Kickstarter, coming up with new and clever packages to bring more fans into the fold and raising money.

Now, it is true that their original goal for funding was hit within the first day. So if they had $250K pledged, why did they just start? Because that's not how that works. Once you've got the money ball rolling, you push it as far as you can. Then, once the Kickstarter ends, even if you have met your funding goal, it still takes weeks before the money is in your account to start using.

And that's not counting the fact that Every Cloud production wants to use this clear statement by the fans of the enthusiasm for a Miss Fisher movie to go back to ABC and see if they're willing to pony up more money to ensure this is a trilogy as planned, now that they've had such a rousing success.