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. 

Moreover, now that the pledges are all in, Every Cloud also had the added baggage of having to fulfill our pledges. Some will be easy, like the Thank You cards. Some will be a bit more involved, like print up script excerpts. Some will fall to the merchandising department, like the lipstick or the hand cream. But then there are bits like "an extra scene between Phryne and Jack into the script" that will be a total fan service minute. That has to be written, and it has to make sense within the script.

Then there's "increase the international filming days in our shooting schedule, as well as add new costumes to Miss Fisher’s wardrobe," both of which will also affect the script and most likely cause additional rewrites, now that there will be more scenes filmed abroad.

Not to mention this will all add to the pre-production schedule, in terms of design hours, costume builds, changing around the entire filming calendar to accommodate more days on international locations, which in itself is an entire mini production, with booking flights, hotels, shipping of sets, wardrobe etc.

You get the picture. These guys promised a lot. And in order to fulfill those promises, that's going to take time. Here's the schedule as currently sketched out by the Kickstarter, in order to fit in working out all these changes:

...we expect filming to begin within 8 months of the Kickstarter campaign ending when our finance is confirmed. We'll provide regular updates on this when we can.

That eight-month period gives them extra time to work out details with ABC, work through all the script rewrites, work out a new schedule with the cast of where and when filming will take place, and then a nice three months of regular pre-production. That puts filming as beginning around May of 2018.

Assuming filming takes somewhere in the six-to-eight month range (including reshoots), with post-production and marketing, and we're looking at Summer of 2019 release. Yes? 

 ...the feature would be set for release in Australia in mid-2019, with other countries to follow as soon as possible afterwards....  we hope we can release the film as close to the Australian premiere as possible.

Ok, Summer of 2019 in Australia. But we here in the states are used to there being a delay between airing down under and then the show making it around topside. Let's just hope it doesn't take too long to get here. Until then, we'll be keeping an eye out on their website.