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Despite a triumphant world premiere at Cannes last May, the politically unsparing Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice was stuck in cinematic limbo. Distributors had snapped up rights in Canada, Japan, Germany, and several other countries, but after a cease-and-desist letter from Trump himself, domestic distributors opted to pass. Lacking any better options to promote the movie and prove public demand, The Apprentice team turned to Kickstarter. The filmmakers campaign hit its $100,000 target in just 12 hoursand ultimately raised four times that amount. (The campaign eventually quadrupled it.) That grassroots support not only funded marketing and screening opportunities, it raised the films profile, helping it secure stateside distribution. The Apprentice went on to earn Oscar nods in February for stars Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. It also proved how the publics faith in a creative project can counterbalance Hollywoods risk aversionespecially when Kickstarter is involved. The Apprentice campaign is a powerful example of how creatorseven those with established platformsare using Kickstarter not just to fund projects, but to secure agency over their work and forge more direct connections with their audience, says Taylor K. Shaw, senior outreach lead of Kickstarters film division. The leading crowdfunding platform for creative projects, Kickstarter has helped hundreds of thousands of creators raise a total of over $8.6 billion since its 2009 launch. Its also proved to be a crucial resource for budding artists, some of whom have gone on to do major Hollywood films. (Directors Jeremy Saulnier and David F. Sandberg, for instance, both used the platform before making the Netflix hit Rebel Ridge and the superhero blockbuster Shazam, respectively.) Kickstarter projects have also collectively netted 19 Oscar nominationsincluding The Apprentices twoand four wins. And now, in a post-pandemic, post-Double Strike landscape, in which major studios are reassessing their budgets and productions are down 40% from 2022, creators of all sorts are starting to see Kickstarter as a vital means of support. That marks a major shift in the way creators view the platform. There was a time when crowdfunding tools like Kickstarter were primarily seen as a way for creators to get projects off the ground, not sustain careers. Directors Zach Braff and Rob Thomas received backlash when they used Kickstarter to fund their different projects in 2013, with some claiming theyd exploited their own fans loyalties in order to skirt typical funding challenges. While crowdfunding a Marvel movie remains inconceivable in 2025comic book movies are now among the only remaining films to still reliably receive studio backingmassive shifts in the entertainment industry have since flipped the script around other kinds of projects. In the age of streaming wars and fragmenting viewership, when some studios would rather ditch completed films for a tax write-off than possibly see them underperform, the challenges creators now face in making passion projects are too often insurmountable. Most filmmakers, both emerging and established, are being told that there is little to no funding available for their original ideas, says Shaw, who works directly with creators to shape their Kickstarter campaigns. They go from pitching everyone they know and getting lots of nos, to having to decide if they want to create their film independently or not. Kickstarter is where they go when they cant wait for a greenlight. But its not just the industry that has changed over the past decadeaudiences perceptions of crowdfunding have evolved, too. Fans who understand the mechanics of Hollywood are more likely to view crowdfunding as a legitimate path for projects of any pedigree, and seem to understand that many creators are turning to their communities for support out of necessitynot convenience. According to Shaw, the projects most likely to get funded on Kickstarter arent necessarily those with ultra-topical plotlines or with big names like Sebastian Stan attached. Rather, its those with a clear vision and a direct line to an engaged audience. Creators with locked-in fan bases, like the hosts of Dungeons & Dragons podcast Critical Role, for instance, can handily bring an existing community to a Kickstarter campaign, as those hosts did with their TV series The Legend of Vox Machina, which raised over $11 million and eventually landed a distribution deal with Amazon Prime. (The show recently concluded its third season.) As for what sort of film and TV projects will be getting funded on Kickstarter in the future, the platform is doubling down on a handful of genres in 2025. Weve seen especially strong engagement around animation, horror and thriller, short films and comedy, where fan bases are incredibly passionate and communities around those projects tend to be especially active, Shaw says. Because those categories already have strong traction, were leaning in with more focused outreach and support to help those creators take full advantage of the momentum that exists. In the meantime, the platform is also supporting all creators who use it by continuing to evolve its arsenal of tools for planning and promoting campaigns and engaging backers. Most recently, Kickstarter rolled out an integrated set of pledge management tools that streamline the logistical processes creators go through after successfully funding projectslike collecting backer info, offering add-ons, and shipping out rewardsall directly through the Kickstarter platform. The company also just launched a new feature called Pledge Over Time, which gives backers the option to split their pledge into four equal payments. Most Kickstarter campaigns offer different rewards for different sizes of contribution, and this latest feature allows cash-strapped fans to access higher-tier rewards for the projects they most want to see in the world. By helping to provide what creators need and what fans want, at a volatile time in Hollywood, Kickstarter has emerged as a welcoming oasis of greenlights for creators of all stripes. As gatekeepers become increasingly reluctant to fund projects outside of well-established intellectual properties, the platform is redistributing the right to decide whether or not the show must go on.
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, will face questions from senators during his confirmation hearing Tuesday about his qualifications to become the top U.S. military officer.Caine is a decorated F-16 combat pilot who served in leadership positions in multiple special operations commands and in some of the Pentagon’s most classified programs. He does not, however, meet the prerequisites for Joint Chiefs chairman, although they can be waived by the president.Caine was nominated by Trump in February, one day after the president fired the former chairman, Gen. CQ Brown Jr., in a purge of general officers whom he and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth viewed as endorsing diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks.Caine met Trump when the president visited troops in Iraq in 2018 during his first term. Trump has told political supporters the encounter left an impression on himand that Caine put on a red “Make America Great Again” hat at the time, something Caine’s inner circle has said is not true.Caine has been described by former military colleagues as a deeply serious career officer who has spent the past few weeks meeting with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, said a former U.S. official who has helped Caine prepare for the confirmation process and spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details on Caine’s nomination. Hegseth notably refused to meet with many Democrats when he was going through the confirmation process.Because he retired in December, Caine would need to be sworn back into active duty. That would take place after he is confirmed, and then he would be promoted to four-star general, the official said.Caine’s nomination following the ouster of Brown is likely to raise questions from some Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee about whether he will remain independent of Trump.During Trump’s first term, his relationship with then-Chairman Gen. Mark Milley soured as Milley pushed back and took steps to try to prevent what he saw as an attempt to politicize the office, such as by reminding military service members they take an oath to the Constitution, not to a president.The relationship soured to the extent that within hours of Trump being sworn in office in January, Milley’s portrait as chairman of the Joint Chiefs was removed from the Pentagon. Trump and Hegseth have subsequently stripped Milley of his security clearance and security detail.Caine does not meet prerequisites laid out in a 1986 law, such as being a combatant commander or service chief. The law, however, allows presidents to waive those requirements to fill the position with someone they are most comfortable with.While Caine would be the military’s top uniformed officer, his chief duty would be serving as the president’s top military adviser.But Caine has spent time inside the Pentagon, leading its Special Access Programs Central Office, which oversees what classified information on weapons programs is shared with foreign governments.He also served as the commander of the joint special operations task force in Iraq in 2008 and as the assistant commanding general of joint special operations command at Fort Bragg. From 2018 to 2019, he was the deputy commanding general of the special operations joint task force for Operation Inherent Resolve, countering the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.He also was associate director for military affairs at the CIA from 2021 until he retired in December.Caine transferred into the National Guard in 2009 and began working in the private sector, including as an adviser at an investment firm run by the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.He has more than 2,800 flying hours in the F-16 and has earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bronze Star Medal with bronze oak leaf cluster, among other awards. Tara Copp, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
A bitcoin investor who bought a SpaceX flight for himself and three polar explorers blasted off Monday night on the first rocket ride to carry people over the North and South poles.Chun Wang, a Chinese-born entrepreneur, hurtled into orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX’s Falcon rocket steered southward over the Atlantic, putting the space tourists on a path never flown before in 64 years of human spaceflight.Wang won’t say how much he paid Elon Musk’s SpaceX for the 3 -day ultimate polar adventure.The first leg of their flightfrom Florida to the South Poletook barely a half-hour. From the targeted altitude of some 270 miles (440 kilometers), their fully automated capsule will circle the globe in roughly 1 hours including 46 minutes to fly from pole to pole.“Enjoy the views of the poles. Send us some pictures,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the capsule reached orbit.Wang has already visited the polar regions in person and wants to view them from space. The trip is also about “pushing boundaries, sharing knowledge,” he said ahead of the flight.Now a citizen of Malta, he took along three guests: Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge, and Australian polar guide Eric Philips.Mikkelsen, the first Norwegian bound for space, has flown over the poles before, but at a much lower altitude. She was part of the 2019 record-breaking mission that circumnavigated the world via the poles in a Gulfstream jet to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing.The crew plans two dozen experimentsincluding taking the first human X-rays in spaceand brought along more cameras than usual to document their journey called Fram2 after the Norwegian polar research ship from more than a century ago.Until now, no space traveler had ventured beyond 65 degrees north and south latitude, just shy of the Arctic and Antarctic circles. The first woman in space, the Soviet Union’s Valentina Tereshkova, set that mark in 1963. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and other pioneering cosmonauts came almost as close, as did NASA shuttle astronauts in 1990.A polar orbit is ideal for climate and Earth-mapping satellites as well as spy satellites. That’s because a spacecraft can observe the entire world each day, circling Earth from pole to pole as it rotates below.Geir Klover, director of the Fram Museum in Oslo, Norway, where the original polar ship is on display, hopes the trip will draw more attention to climate change and the melting polar caps. He lent the crew a tiny piece of the ship’s wooden deck that bears the signature of Oscar Wisting, who with Roald Amundsen in the early 1900s became the first to reach both poles.Wang pitched the idea of a polar flight to SpaceX in 2023, two years after U.S. tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman made the first of two chartered flights with Musk’s company. Isaacman is now in the running for NASA’s top job.SpaceX’s Kiko Dontchev said late last week that the company is continually refining its training so “normal people” without traditional aerospace backgrounds can “hop in a capsule . . . and be calm about it.”Wang and his crew view the polar flight like camping in the wild and embrace the challenge.“Spaceflight is becoming increasingly routine and, honestly, I’m happy to see that,” Wang said via X last week.Wang said he’s been counting up his flights since his first one in 2002, flying on planes, helicopters, and hot air balloons in his quest to visit every country. So far, he’s visited more than half. He arranged it so that liftoff would mark his 1,000th flight. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Marcia Dunn, AP Aerospace Writer
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