Tomb Raider Director To Crowdfund Next Film

The British director of Con Air and Tomb Raider is turning his back on Hollywood in favour of crowdfunding to finance his next film.

Simon West will be offering a share in the profits of his new project Salty for anyone who is willing to invest over £1,000.

Simon's films have taken more than a $1bn (£600m) at the global box office and he's worked with some of the world's most bankable stars including Angelina Jolie, Bruce Willis and Sly Stalone.

Crowdfunding is nothing new - the film Veronica Mars has been one of the most successful projects, raising millions of pounds in less than a day.

Huge sums have been invested in a range of artistic projects including films, fashion, pop and art, via websites like Kickstarter, with the public pooling their money for the love of the idea, not for the profit.

The film Salty will be different to the traditional crowd funding model because investors can make money if the movie is a hit - they'll get equity in exchange for investment.

Simon West, the director of Salty, told Sky News that this way of funding means he has more creative freedom than if he was funded through the studio system.

He said: "When I investigated it, it sounds like a really interesting way to finance your independent film instead of going to a bank or a hedge fund.

"People invest in your project and actually become share holders so we can actually raise the money for the film with a lot of people instead of going to one financial institution and the benefit of that, for me, is that I get a lot of creative freedom because I don't really have anyone to answer to.

"So I can make the film I want to make."

However Matt Risley from Total Film magazine believes this way of funding can actually be detrimental to the end result.

"While crowdfunding does give people more freedom and more liberty to create the movie that they want to, unencumbered by the studio red tape and a thousand different departments, it does also mean there's an issue with quality control.

"If a studio isn't financing a film, it's because they don't think it's profitable enough."

The Tomb Raider director is set to sell £1.8m of shares in his new film to small investors in Britain.

The shares are being sold via the crowdfunding platform SyndicateRoom .