When your movie stars a troubled actress (Lindsay Lohan) and a porn star (James Deen), it’s no wonder you can’t get a mainstream studio to back it. But no worries. Director Paul Schrader wound up beating his $100,000 funding goal by more than 59% last July, thanks in large part to the buzz around the script, which was written by American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis.
Slated for an Aug. 9 release, The Canyons is an erotic thriller that documents “five twenty-something’s quest for power, love, sex and success in 2012 Hollywood,” according to the film’s Kickstarter page. (Here’s a sneak peek.) The funding isn’t the only thing unusual about how the film was made, either. Actors were invited to submit audition videos on the movie’s Facebook page, filming lasted just three weeks, and six lucky backers will get the unusual perk of having their own screenplay read and reviewed online by Ellis in exchange for their $5,000 gift.