As ‘Veronica Mars’ movie opens, Kickstarter launches its own iTunes page

The same weekend that the Veronica Mars movie opened up in theaters, coming through on its wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, the Greenpoint-based crowdfunding leader announced the new Kickstarter room on iTunes via its blog and email list, a space devoted entirely to fans buying and renting movies backed by the platform.

This reporter saw Veronica Mars opening night. Its characters were relateable and the movie was quirky and snarky, with the big production of popular cinema today: making it ideal for the crowdfunding model. There’s a hunger for movies that follow a vision, not a formula. [Disclosure: I was a very small backer of the new Rob Thomas movie].

Though not everyone sees the Veronica Mars campaign quite so rosily, and probably justifiably so.

As Kickstarter breaks the billion dollar mark in pledges, a natural question that arises about the company is: are they creating new revenue streams as the size of their business grows? There is no hint in the iTunes room nor in any of the materials that Kickstarter has put out about whether or not the company gets some commission on films sold through its pages. Whether they are or are not, though, it does hint that there could be a future in the company using its name recognition to market some of its most successful projects.

One caution about the new Kristen Bell movie: one of the ways it shows how devoted it is to its fans is by absolutely wallowing in references from the three-season TV show that preceded it. If you’re not familiar with the source material, you might want to catch up first.