Would anyone actually sponsor a serious 9/11 documentary for the complete story after this 25th anniversary?
I’m curious whether there would be interest in something like this, so I figured an anonymous Reddit poll would be a good way to test the waters before I seriously consider doing it. Not sure if this is the right subreddit to do it, though.
I’m considering producing a high-end, historically focused documentary, potentially in collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum for archival material, licensing, interviews, etc. But importantly, this would not be a museum-sponsored production, it’d be independent to have free will to talk about things many documentaries just disregard.
Licensing and access costs are a significant part of the budget. My idea would go well beyond simply retelling what happened on September 11. Of course, the back story and the survival testimonies come first. But I’d like to cover the background story and also the aftermath over the last 25 years, including the geopolitical shift, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and their broader consequences, the fall of Al-Qaeda but its evolution into ISIS and the global counterterrorism landscape, how the post 9/11 world affected other regions, changes in U.S. foreign policy, intelligence, aviation and national security and where the global fight against terrorism stands today.
I’d like it to be a 3-part series, ultimately showing what the world looks like 25 years later and today’s threats.
Part of the reason I’m considering doing this is that 9/11 is surprisingly poorly understood outside the U.S., especially in Latin America. Most people know the basic story, but not necessarily the geopolitical chain of events that followed or how deeply it affected the rest of the world.
For context, I’m a lawyer and I run a YouTube channel focused primarily on business, law and investments. I already have a fairly established Latin American audience and a community that trusts me for long-form educational content. So, I’m not starting from zero in terms of distribution or credibility.
The problem is the budget.
When I initially thought about this, I figured I could potentially put around $50K of my own money into it. After looking more seriously at archival licensing, interviews, testimonials, travel, production, research, etc. I’m currently estimating that could end up at around $175-200K.
And honestly, I wasn't planning on putting $200K of my own money into a 9/11 documentary… I’m not Hulu 😂
So this is basically a reality check…
If a serious, independently produced, non-monetized 9/11 documentary was being made for the 25th anniversary with that context and target audience, would you or a small company you know actually consider sponsoring it to cover part of the production gap?
The idea would not be to turn it into a sponsored propaganda piece. I’d want editorial independence and transparency, and the documentary would be freely available and serve more as a historical and educational project than a monetization vehicle.
I'm mostly trying to figure out whether there is enough genuine interest from individuals to make the economics of this possible.
If so, roughly what level of sponsorship would you guys consider realistic?
Even if the answer is "absolutely not, you are crazy" I'm trying to determine whether this is an actually crazy idea or something that could be crowdfunded into existence.