March 8, 2009

Movie vs. Maxi Series

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Matt Yglesias saw Watchmen last night and says:

All-in-all, I’m torn between immense admiration for the film and regret that it was done as a movie at all. In retrospect, I kind of wish we’d instead gotten a 12 part HBO maxi-series that was really uncompromising and didn’t leave anything out.

You could think that about a lot of movies, couldn’t you? And I have! Which is a little odd since I don’t subscribe to HBO and wouldn’t get to see any of these maxi-series ideas if they actually got made.

Watchmen, of course, would present a challenge here. At least I think it would. The problem is that the original chapters are pretty self-contained and it really would make sense to keep them that way. So, one episode per chapter. Unfortunately, that would require a fair amount of padding. Most of the chapters just don’t have enough substance to take up an hour of screen time.

So a movie it is. I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no comment on how it turned out. But I’m looking forward to it even though the reviews so far have been pretty lukewarm. I don’t think I’ll be buying a Rorschach doll any time soon, though.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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