Axanar producer Alec Peters on the set of the Ares in the warehouse he’s moving out of May 1. Image/Axanar YouTube channel
FEBRUARY 16, 2019 | 3 MIN READ
Ares Studio Patreon a Bait-and-Switch?
New Video Spouts Outdated Pitch About the Warehouse Peters is Actually Giving Up
Alec Peters released a Patreon video update February 15, 2019, aimed at rallying supporters who so far had pledged $1,637 a month. The video offered patrons an impressive tour of Axanar’s Lawrenceville, Ga., warehouse, including the Ares bridge set. Trouble is, the warehouse he described is not the one donors are paying for.
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See also: The Incredible Shrinking Studio
Smaller warehouse
Peters had informed his Reel Trek viewers on February 8 he was giving up the 6,000 square foot warehouse featured in Friday’s video in favor of a nearby facility about half the size, calling it “the right move … no matter how much money we make.”
Watch
THE STUDIO featured in this Patreon update video isn’t the one donors will be paying for. Video/Axanar Youtube channel
Patrons in the Dark
That’s not the news Peters delivered to patrons in the video a week later, however. His Reel Trek comment has not been officially posted anywhere, appearing only in AxaMonitor‘s coverage.
Bottom Line
Peters is moving ahead assuming he won’t earn enough from Patreon to keep his current warehouse, and the smaller one he’s moving into May 1 won’t offer anywhere near the space he’s continuing to tell donors they’re supporting.
Patreon Progress
PATREON STATUS on February 15: 180 patrons (0 more than previous day) for $1,637 ($7 more than previous day). Growth is flattening.
Revisionist History of Ares Studios
While trying hard to raise enough money to support some kind of studio space in Georgia, Peters has been trying to rewrite history, claiming he never used Star Trek intellectual property to build an independent studio:
“Total bullshit,” he says about the claim in the Axanar Fan Group on Facebook.
A Different Tune
That’s not what Star Trek fans heard from Peters during his 2014 Kickstarter, his January 2015 blog announcement, his 2015 Annual Report and his 2016 announcement the studio was being taken over by unnamed private investors.
Hundreds of thousand of fans’ dollars were raised by Peters under the banner of producing “the first fully-professional, independent Star Trek film” that went directly into building the studio.
The Bottom Line
Despite three-quarters of a million of fans’ dollars poured into the now-abandoned studio, not a frame of Axanar was ever filmed inside. Go deeper » 
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