The Guild movie smashes funding goal: Felicia Day on bypassing studios and reuniting the cast

Felicia Day and the original Knights of Good cast are reuniting for a new feature-length film, The Guild: Ren Faire’d, marking the groundbreaking web series’ upcoming 20th anniversary.

The crowdfunding campaign launched on Kickstarter today, aiming to make the feature film entirely independently. In a note shared on the campaign page, Day revealed the catalyst for returning to grassroots funding: early in 2025, a Hollywood executive pitched bringing The Guild back but wanted to recast the series with younger actors. Rather than compromise on the core cast, Day chose to go straight to the fans.

That gamble paid off almost immediately. Within its opening hours, the project smashed past its £1,114,347 ($1.5 million) funding target, clearing over $1.5 million with thousands of backers jumping on board on day one.

The feature reunites original cast members Felicia Day (Codex), Amy Okuda (Tink), Jeff Lewis (Vork), Robin Thorsen (Clara), Vince Caso (Bladezz), and Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo) for a story set in a Renaissance Faire. The project is executive produced by Ryan Copple and directed by series veteran Sean Becker.

Along with funding the movie, the campaign serves as a massive fan event with multiple backing options. Backers can jump in at several tier levels, including:

• Entry Tiers: A $20 option offering a digital copy of the film alongside Discord tags and digital backer cards, through to $35–$50 single-item tiers focused on Swords & Sweethearts (a dating-sim card game created by Ryan Copple and Scrungo Games), the 120-page The Guild tabletop roleplaying game written by Vince Caso and published by Hit Point Press, or a collectible “Poopcorn” popcorn bucket.
• Curated Bundles: Options range from the $55 Wearables Bundle (shirt, blind-box enamel pin, and sticker sheet) up to comprehensive collections like the $125 Game Night Bundle, $130 Entertainment Bundle (including a complete series Blu-ray set and Image Comics graphic novel omnibus), and the $330 Everything Bundle.
• Experiential & Collector Tiers: High-tier options range from the $615 Signature Bundle featuring a signed script and poster to premium backer packages offering set visits, premiere tickets, and executive producer credits.

Felicia Day interview

Geek Native caught up with creator and star Felicia Day to discuss returning to independent funding, transitioning to a feature film format, and reuniting the cast.

You’re once again bypassing Hollywood infrastructure to bring The Guild: The Movie to life through Kickstarter on July 20, already breaking records as the most followed film project on the platform. What creative freedoms do you gain by engaging directly with the community this time that a standard studio deal would compromise?

We went directly to fans in 2007 to fund and finish season 1. So it felt natural to go directly to Kickstarter to bring the show back. I never contemplated anything different. Community involvement and fan participation is part of the DNA of the show. In the past, I never had notes from a studio or outside financier the whole of our 6 seasons. It was just me, my producer, my director and my cast making what we love. Clearly our fans liked what we did. To go to the traditional route, getting notes based on analytics and test audiences, trying to explain to an Hollywood executive why the show matters at ALL, was not something I wanted to explore. We have done the show our way for almost 20 years, we’ll continue to do it that way going forward.

When The Guild first aired, mainstream media misunderstood online gaming spaces as isolating. Now, MMOs and digital tabletop games are community hubs. How will the Knights of Good reflect this shift from niche subculture to mainstream entertainment?

I spent a long time thinking about how to bring the cast back together in a relevant way. Rest assured, our audience will be delighted with our setting and how far the characters have come since we saw them. On July 20th when we unveil details, it will be a fun moment for everyone.

The Guild pioneered the short-form webisode format, but transitioning to a feature-length film requires changes in pacing and structure. How will you maintain the fast-paced comedic energy of the original series while crafting a cohesive two-hour story?

A large portion of our audience actually experienced “The Guild” for the first time as movie-length seasons. On Netflix all the episodes were edited together to run continuously. So developmentally, it’s not that different. In fact, I have always written the show as a feature-length script and cut it up later, this will truly be no different, just in scale and size.

There’s tension in indie media between high-budget demands and keeping access affordable for fans. As the third most-followed campaign in Launch Oracle history, how will you balance production costs while keeping this campaign grassroots?

We are doing a movie Kickstarter unlike any other to raise enough money to make a high-quality, theatre-worthy piece of cinema. Film is expensive. No matter what we raise, we will be a low-budget movie. But I do hope that fans are excited enough about all the different opportunities to back we’re offering them that we raise enough to bring this story to life in the way I dream we can.

With Codex’s original costume in the Smithsonian, the show’s legacy is solidified. What does “critical success” mean to you when you wrap production and reunite the original cast in 2027?

Critical success means making the movie independently and giving our backers a reason to celebrate 20 years of making stuff together. It’s the legacy I’m most proud of, that we have been a community together

Thanks, Felicia!

With two decades of community support behind it, The Guild continues to prove that creator-led, fan-funded projects can thrive outside the traditional studio model. Reuniting the original Knights of Good for a feature-length Renaissance Faire adventure isn’t just a nostalgic nod to the series’ webisode roots; it’s a celebration of the community that built it from day one. As the campaign continues to break records, fans have a front-row seat and a direct hand in shaping the next chapter of gamer culture history.

Backers can view the full tier lineup and support the project directly on The Guild: Ren Faire’d Kickstarter campaign page.