Fan-made films are, understandably, a pretty mixed bag.
Just because the passion and love for the source material is there doesn’t mean the end result will always be great. Most of the time, this is due to budget constraints, as the fans behind these films usually fund it themselves.
Most of the time, fan-made movies are either forgettable or just plain awful. I won’t name any names because the people behind these projects aren’t professionals and usually work on very tight budgets.
Sometimes, however, they are adequately funded, and in that case they may deserve some of the wrath they receive (*cough cough* Spider-Man: Lotus *cough cough*)
But every once in a blue moon, fans manage to produce something truly incredible.
One of the first projects Dan Trachtenberg released was the incredible fan film Portal: No Escapeand later directed both prey And 10 Cloverfield Lane – two incredibly well-received, big-budget Hollywood films.
Probably the most famous fan film of the last decade is “DARTH MAUL: The Apprenticeship,” which launched one of Hollywood’s best stuntmen, Vi-Dan Tran, into a career.
Tran has since worked on Into the Badlandsboth by Denis Villeneuve dune Movies and Marvels Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Now it’s Cyberpunk 2077’s turn – and luckily this film belongs to the second, incredible category of fan-made films and not to the terrible, useless side where Spider-Man: Lotus heard.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Beginner Move is based on the Netflix series of the same name and takes place shortly before the fourth episode.
The project was organized by its lead actor Cameron Rankin, who plays David, and also stars Erica Hau as Lucyna and Danny Yang as Daiki.
The short film was partially funded by donations from GoFundMe. The donation page is still active if you would like to support the team’s future projects. The entire project is not-for-profit and the team plans to release all upcoming short films for free.
The general reaction to the film (especially in the Reddit post announcing its release) has been deservedly positive, but one particular shoutout definitely stands out above all the others.
Paweł Sasko, Associate Game Director at CD Projekt Red, praised the team behind the film on Twitter, writing: “Hats off guys, what an amazing production! Thank you for your passion.”
We hope to hear more from the team behind Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Beginner Move in the future, because due to the quality of this project their careers look promising.
And as the talent behind both Portal: No Escape And DARTH MAUL: Apprentice has proven that a fan-made project can sometimes lead to huge success in Hollywood.
