‘The Guild: Ren Faire’d’: Felicia Day on Kickstarter Movie

Do not cite the deep magic to Felicia Day, internet. She was there when it was written. 

For over three decades, Day has been working as an actor, filmmaker, host, producer, Twitch streamer, author, and more in the geekiest corners of the web (including founding the multimedia company Geek & Sundry, where “Critical Role” got its start). She was among the early pioneers of scripted series on YouTube and has seen the creative landscape outside Hollywood’s permission structures change for better and worse since 2007. 

It seems like a good portent for everybody who enjoys innovative, web-native storytelling (and/or the independent films spinning off from them this year) that Day launched a Kickstarter campaign for a film follow-up to her six-season web series, “The Guild.” She’s already been first on the ground so many times as the internet has changed.

That short-form streaming comedy — even if nobody knew to call it that yet in 2007 — centered around an anxious gamer (Day) addicted to a “World of Warcraft” style MMO who suddenly finds herself having to deal with the people she plays with in real life, not just their online avatars. The film — which will feature original cast members Sandeep Parikh, Amy Okuda, Jeff Lewis, Robin Thorsen, Vince Caso, and Wil Wheaton — reunites the Guildies, 13 years after the end of the series, at a Ren Faire.

Surely only reasonable decisions and mild enjoyment of turkey legs will ensue. 

Whatever the plot, the promise of a “Guild” movie has been enough to propel the project into being the second-most-funded Kickstarter for a narrative film of all time. “The Guild: Ren Faire’d” has handily trounced Zac Braff’s and Spike Lee’s projects on the platform; and, as of this writing, it sits within striking distance of topping “The Veronica Mars Movie’s” $5.7 million crowd fund.

The cult web series still has three days to raise under half a million dollars to beat the record set by “Veronica Mars.” They’re well on track to do that, given how the last 48 hours of Kickstarter projects tend to fall as backers choose to commit or to increase their pledges. Even if “The Guild” tops out at its current $5.2 million raise as of this writing, that still represents five “Obsession” budgets. 

It also represents months of preparation, a team of 12 developing a merch store to drive backer pledges, and the creation of a “The Guild” RPG and a card-game-based dating sim, “Swords & Sweethearts.” Available to backers, the sim features a murderer’s row of romanceable geek luminaries — from Day and “The Guild” cast members to Nathan Fillion, Misha Collins, and Erika Ishii.

“We started with me and my producer Ryan. We added John, our Kickstarter manager, and now we have at least a dozen people working on the campaign, and we could use another dozen, to be honest with you,” Day told IndieWire. 

But the merch store approach felt like the fairest way to ask fans to donate at higher spending levels than they did back when Day added a PayPal button to the “Guild” website in 2008. “ Nowadays, people see videos that they love made for nothing every day, and the scale [of a film] is just, it’s a lot to ask for, and I totally get the psychological resistance to being able to continuously support what is going to be a very low-budget movie,” Day said.

In fact, the team’s estimate for the film’s end budget, after merchandising costs and fees, is essentially the same as one first-season episode of a half-hour comedy on a streaming network. But to get there, “The Guild” will have to successfully raid a series of bosses (and/or meet a series of logistical requirements that are more intense for a film production than a web series).

Insurance requirements and union contracts for film are different from the New Media ones that govern SAG day rates on web series or podcasts, for instance. Then, there’s the bureaucratic nightmare of trying to secure tax credits in Los Angeles. ”To me, any movie under $10 million should automatically get a tax credit, and the reality is that only 5% of the money goes to movies under $10 million,” Day said. These are but some of the costs for trying to do things beyond the Wall of Hollywood, where life has gotten harder and colder since Day came up on YouTube. 

It wasn’t just that the internet had less AI slop coursing through its veins, but also more interest from the industry in supporting web-native creators on their terms. “ The last time we shot was 2012. We had free stage access from YouTube. We had cameras. We had other facilities. There was a lot more help,” Day said. “We were sponsored by Sprint for four years. And then advertisers realized they could just as easily advertise against a hamster on a wheel or one vlogger in their house in Topeka, Kansas, for free. And it’s smart. Like, why would I invest $200,000 in a show when I could advertise against something that’s free?” 

“The Guild” Kickstarter itself, perhaps, provides the answer to that. With respect for all hamster wheel videos everywhere, millions of people still remember watching “The Guild” — including this writer, alas and alack, back in high school — or are still discovering it for the first time. The I.P., which Day has kept creative control over, hasn’t gone stale. Plus, it’s worth millions of dollars, even if establishment tastemakers haven’t necessarily been smart enough to realize it. 

 ”There is a sort of a snobbery to it, like the word ‘content.’ And I think it’s sad that there is a snobbery there. You know, you have people make $20 million movies that five people see, and then when I tried to shop some of my shows around that got a million views, I was looked at with contempt because that’s not their demographic. They don’t understand that content,” Day said. “About a year ago, an executive called [me] and wanted to reboot the show and recast the actors. It was a very upsetting call because I was finally excited that someone was acknowledging me and interested in my work, finally, but then it was like, ‘Nope, they aren’t. That’s not what Hollywood does with you, Felicia.’”

That call lit a fire in Day to actually write the movie script, commit to doing something big for the show’s 20th anniversary, and take it to the fans to help realize. “It could be one movie, it could be four. Who knows? But the value of this I.P. that I created, that I own still, lasts longer than the moment. So I’m hoping that with Markiplier and ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ and all these sort of web native filmmakers coming out and raising the bar in sophistication and originality — most importantly, in being different — I hope that this is what everyone thought that the web was going to be in 2007 through 2011,” Day said. “In collapse, there’s always opportunity, and I really do hope that diverse voices from not just one place in the world are going to be able to tell their stories and break out.”

If Hollywood’s Age of Bronze is indeed collapsing to make way for more web native storytellers, it won’t be complete without Day and “The Guild” as part of it. That’s also because the internet we have today is full of people either nurtured or inspired by the indie creator community that Day was so essential in building. 

“It’s been very gratifying to see so many people come out from places I never knew they were — I had lost touch — to say how much the show meant to them, especially in their formative years,” Day said. “Nobody ever presented themselves as caring for the show as much as I did, and so to have everybody come out and be excited for a new story? I could never have imagined this outpouring of love, and it kind of confirms all the things I’ve done over the years.” 

“The Guild: Ren Faire’d” is crowdfunding on Kickstarter. “The Guild” web series is available on YouTube.