Novelist Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) has conducted a successful Kickstarter campaign to make a low-budget movie based on his 2002 novel Lullaby.
Palahniuk will co-write the screenplay with director Andy Mingo.
Josh Leake is producing and Palahniuk will exec produce.
The 30-day campaign, which launched May 17, had raised $255,853 from 3,273 backers as of 1 p.m. on Saturday, its 17th day.
Lullaby centers on an aging reporter whose family mysteriously died years earlier. Palahniuk wrote the novel during the trial of a man who was convicted of murdering his father.
“The support has been very gratifying,” Palahniuk said. “I’m planning to go to locations to watch it get shot but I really want it to be Andy’s movie, too. He’s the one who’s really making this happen.”
Palahniuk noted that he’s working with Mingo on the trailer for the “Fight Club 2” graphic novel release and will begin a promotional tour on June 27. Mingo also previously worked on an adaptation of his short story “Romance.”
He also said he’s enjoyed the camaraderie in collaborating on the “Lullaby” project, his first screenplay. “My anxiety is always directed to novel-writing, since that’s such a solitary effort,” he added.
“This project is also important to Chuck,” the campaign page said. “He began writing ‘Lullaby’ during the trial of his father’s murderer in 1999. The prosecutor came to Chuck and asked him if he wanted to advocate for the death penalty. This idea spawned the culling song, or the power of the word to cast a spell, and the story of ‘Lullaby’ was created.”
Premiums include $30 for the donor’s name in the credits, $45 for a T-shirt, $5,000 to be a featured extra in the film and $15,000 to advertise the donor’s business in the film. The $40 reward level gives backers a chance to be “virtual producers” and will be able to vote on actual production choices.
“Chuck doesn’t write for mainstream audiences,” the campaign page also said. “His books challenge everything about mainstream audiences. His novel Lullaby deploys necrophilia, gender-bending, and no-way-would-this-make-it-to-comfortable-TV satire. We want to make a movie that makes people feel uncomfortable enough to think original thoughts again, just like Chuck’s novels do.”
The 1999 movie Fight Club, which starred Brad Pitt and was directed by David Fincher, grossed $100 million worldwide for Fox.
Palahniuk’s Choke was also adapted into a low-budget indie 2008, with Sam Rockwell starring and Clark Gregg directing, grossing $4 million for Fox Searchlight.
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