OZombie Kickstarter Pulled in Favour of Movie

American McGee has put an end to his proposed OZombie Kickstarter campaign (thanks to  Eurogamer for bringing this to our attention).

After raising just $141,513 (the goal was $950,000 goal), McGee posted an update stating the reasons behind killing the project. As a stretch goal, the rights for animated movies based upon McGee’s Alice were added, before being removed a few days after:

“Since working to remove [the film rights] from the Oz campaign we’ve been unable to launch it as a separate campaign here on Kickstarter. The submission has been rejected multiple times and our appeals have failed (multiple campaigns are not allowed). To launch a campaign for the Alice films rights means we must first shut down the Oz campaign.For Oz, we can always launch another campaign in the future. On the other hand, the Alice film rights are only within reach during a rapidly closing window of opportunity. We’ll sacrifice Oz today in order to have a real chance with Alice.”

McGee said that acquiring the rights would allow them to produce merchandise – on top of animated features. Collision Entertainment currently owns the rights to McGee’s interpretation of Alice in Wonderland and would require a one-off payment of $500,000, or $100,000 a year, to relinquish them. The Kickstarter campaign for the animated feature is expected to begin later this week.