Spike Lee’s latest joint will be made. The director’s Kickstarter project has passed its $1.25 million goal and continues to rise.
Lee started the project to raise funds for “The Newest Hottest Spike Lee Joint” on July 22 and since then, it has had over 5,300 backers and has reached $1,293,539 with four days left to go. The Do The Right Thing filmmaker bills the new project as a story about humans who love blood, although he promises that it’s not a Dracula remake.
Lee got 28 backers to donate $10,000 and they will get to sit next to Lee during a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, sitting courtside. He will also take them out to dinner.
As we reported last month after the project was launched, Lee was the target of criticism, since he is an established, Oscar-nominated filmmaker. In fact, his latest film, Oldboy, stars major actors like Josh Brolin, Samuel L. Jackson and Elizabeth Olsen.
He defended his decision, though, suggesting that it will actually help undiscovered filmmakers since he gets Kickstarter extra attention.
“I’m bringing people to Kickstarter who never even heard of Kickstarter; I’m talking [about] a lot of people of color who’ve never heard of Kickstarter, who’ve never made a pledge on Kickstarter,” Lee told Film Courage. “So I really think it’s a fallacy, it’s a misconception, and it’s just plain-out wrong, with a capital W, that because someone puts $5 on my film … that was $5 that a young filmmaker was going to get. That logic does not follow through.”
Oldboy is now scheduled for a Nov. 27 release.
image: Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Jaeger-LeCoultre/image.net