Charlie Kaufman, Dan Harmon fund 'Anomalisa' with Kickstarter

Published on September 18, 2012 04:44PM EDT

Image Credit: Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/AFP/Getty Images[/caption]

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman can’t possibly have any more indie cred, right? Just look at his work: Being John Malkovich. Adaptation. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Well, he done outdid himself this time. Looking to forgo the big-studio process, Kaufman has teamed with recently-ousted Community creator Dan Harmon and former Community actor Dino Stamatopoulos to bring Kaufman’s stop-motion project Anomalisa to life via Kickstarter. Harmon and Stamatopoulos are the brains behind Starburns Industries, which produced the Emmy-winning stop-motion Christmas episode of Community.

Anomalisa is an adaptation of a 2005 play written by Kaufman, in which the protagonist is “crippled by the mundanity of his life,” according to a promo on the project’s website. As of this writing, the Kickstarter campaign has raised $406,237 in 60 days, more than double the original $200,000 goal. That’s also the most money a Film & Video Kickstarter campaign has raised since the platform debuted in 2009.

Harmon is excited by the prospect of maintaining artistic control of the film, and relishes the collaboration between creators and audience. “It feels like viewers and creatives waking up from a hundred year nightmare to find out they’ve been spooning the whole time,” he said in a press release.

Production on the approximately 50-minute film is slated to begin in November.

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