Leslie David Baker, best known for playing Dunder Mifflin accountant Stanley Hudson on “The Office”, has announced that he’ll be refunding fans who contributed to a Kickstarter funding a spin-off series featuring his character.
Back in 2020, Baker launched the Kickstarter campaign, seeing to raised $300,000 to shoot the pilot for “Uncle Stan”, in which his character, now retired in Florida, moves to L.A. to help his nephew save his struggling business.
At the time, she shared a brief tease on social media of what fans could expect.
According to Variety, the campaign took in a total of $336,450 during the campaign; “Uncle Stan”, however, has yet to see the light of day.
However, the outlet also reports that some of the actor’s fans have been questioning him on social media about what happened to the money that he raised.
To address those concerns, Baker issued a statement via Instagram.
“We apologize about the delay in updates,” Baker wrote.
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“We have been working behind the scenes to get everything on track and rewards fulfilled. We are just as excited as all of you to get this project out and truly appreciate all of your patience and support. The project took longer than anticipated due to circumstances beyond our control,” he continued.
“Initial delays were caused because of the COVID lockdowns and pushed us back further than expected. As things started returning to normal and we commenced reward fulfillment and preproduction, the WGA strike was announced causing us to put things on hold again. As you are all aware, SAG is now on strike and we will continue to be on hold indefinitely until an agreement is reached. We stand in solidarity with those in the entertainment industry and will do our part in supporting WGA and SAG during these times,” he stated.
Insisting that he’s still planning on moving forward with “Uncle Stan” after the strikes end, he announced he’ll refund all the backers.
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“In light of the current economic situation, we felt that this was the best course of action. You will receive a message notifying you of your refund as soon as it is issued and you can expect to receive it over the following weeks. We will also be contacting Kickstarter to facilitate expediting this matter. We have remained in constant communication with our backers via direct messaging and rewards have continued to be fulfilled during this time,” he wrote.
“FYI, although the total funded amount shown on our Kickstarter campaign page was stated as $336,450.53, that was not the actual final amount we received,” he added. “A large portion of backers’ pledges were lowered, or completely dropped and never collected once the campaign was completed. The final amount that we received from Kickstarter was exactly $110,629.81. The funds were never used for any purposes other than reward fulfillment and backer refunds, and have otherwise remained accounted for and untouched in the account,” he added.
