Simon West’s ‘Salty’ sets UK crowdfunding record

Simon West’s action-comedy Salty has become the most successful UK film on a crowd-funding platform to date, raising £1.9m ($2.8m), according to the production.

The film hit its crowdfunding target of £1.8m ($2.7m) on March 14 with additional investment available until next weekend.

The project is raising money through platform SyndicateRoom with investors promised a stake in the film’s profits.

The rest of the film’s $10m budget is due to be raised through angel investment, tax credit returns and pre-sales.

Carnaby handles sales on the film and has inked pre-sales with Indonesia (PT Prima Cinema), Bulgaria, Czech Republic & Slovakia, Former Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania (Prorom), Poland (Kino Swiat), Israel (Five Stars), Middle East (Gulf Film) and Turkey (Central Park).

Salty, adapted by Mark Haskell Smith from his novel of the same name, follows an ageing rock star whose holiday in Thailand takes a turn for the worse when his wife is kidnaped by pirates.

West’s Simon West Productions is aiming to shoot the film at the end of the year.

Before then, The Expendables 2 and Con Air director is being lined up to shoot Henry Cavill action film Stratton and a remake of The Blob.

West said: “I am delighted to have achieved this ‘world first’ by selling shares in my upcoming film directly to investors, the movie going fans themselves.

“Now it’s up to me to make a great film and repay their support with great returns.”

Zach Braff’s comedy-drama Wish I Was Here currently holds the record for the most money raised by a film through a crowdfunding platform, generating $3.2m (£2.1m) on Kickstarter in 2013

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