Well, Amazon does something like this for their original content (competing ideas that members of one of their subsites vote on), but with the difference being that Amazon puts up the money. Also, some existing production companies/distributors have been willing to handle pictures financed this way. Contrary to what you might imagine, nobody likes litigation except a subset of the many lawyers that work in Hollywood, and on most projects no litigation ever takes place.
The crowdfunding model can work to some degree but it suffers from three limitations.
1. It's not good for really big sums, like millions of dollars - not least because of SEC rules, but let's face it, that's a hard amount of money to raise more than a year in advance of release from the general public. For the same reaosn that many people would rather torrent than wait to buy or rent or stream a new film, asking them to pay up front and then wait around for the film to get made is not going to be easy either.
2. Besides the large sum, another reason it's difficult is that many of the jobs involved in film production are highly specialized and it's not obvious to a potential kickstarter buyer how the money is going to be spent. You probably don't want to throw down $15,000 for a 'Honeywagon driver,' for example, without the honeywagon there won't be much exterior shooting because that's the unglamorous line item for the delivery, maintenance, and removal of portable toilet facilities, the cost of which really adds up when you have 40 or 50 people who need to use them. Each othe sub-categories on this page generates further pages of accounting stuff and legal documents: http://www.indieproduction.com/sample-budget-top-sheet.php
3. It's especially not good for films that don't tap into an existing franchise, like a sequel or continuation of an existing series, or with the involvement of famous actors/directors. Few people are eager to invest in someone's first project or a film about subject matter that they're not familiar with, not least because few people know how to evaluate the quality of a script or estimate the credibility of a film proposal. So while you could probably find people willing to crowdfund, I dunno, Jaws in Space, you're going to have a harder time with anything original.
4. It's going to be a lot trickier to get it into theaters if you are also going to be giving it away, because theater owners won't want to take the risk of playing to empty seats. You'd still be able to do a limited release or make advance ownership of the tickets part of the crowdfunding reward, but then you need to include the theater's overhead costs and effectively rent the screen from them which is going to drive up the costs.
The crowdfunding model can work to some degree but it suffers from three limitations.
1. It's not good for really big sums, like millions of dollars - not least because of SEC rules, but let's face it, that's a hard amount of money to raise more than a year in advance of release from the general public. For the same reaosn that many people would rather torrent than wait to buy or rent or stream a new film, asking them to pay up front and then wait around for the film to get made is not going to be easy either.
2. Besides the large sum, another reason it's difficult is that many of the jobs involved in film production are highly specialized and it's not obvious to a potential kickstarter buyer how the money is going to be spent. You probably don't want to throw down $15,000 for a 'Honeywagon driver,' for example, without the honeywagon there won't be much exterior shooting because that's the unglamorous line item for the delivery, maintenance, and removal of portable toilet facilities, the cost of which really adds up when you have 40 or 50 people who need to use them. Each othe sub-categories on this page generates further pages of accounting stuff and legal documents: http://www.indieproduction.com/sample-budget-top-sheet.php
3. It's especially not good for films that don't tap into an existing franchise, like a sequel or continuation of an existing series, or with the involvement of famous actors/directors. Few people are eager to invest in someone's first project or a film about subject matter that they're not familiar with, not least because few people know how to evaluate the quality of a script or estimate the credibility of a film proposal. So while you could probably find people willing to crowdfund, I dunno, Jaws in Space, you're going to have a harder time with anything original.
4. It's going to be a lot trickier to get it into theaters if you are also going to be giving it away, because theater owners won't want to take the risk of playing to empty seats. You'd still be able to do a limited release or make advance ownership of the tickets part of the crowdfunding reward, but then you need to include the theater's overhead costs and effectively rent the screen from them which is going to drive up the costs.