In less than a week,William Shatnerfans have fully funded theStar Trekactor’s forthcoming feature-length documentaryYou Can Call Me Bill, shelling out over $790,000 to support the film’s funding goal.
As of Monday, June 29, 2025, the fan-owned company Legion M equity crowdfunding round for the Shatner documentary, described as “an intimate portrait of William Shatner’s personal journey across nine decades of a boldly lived and fully realized life,” had sold out from reservation holders before the offering was opened to the public. Within four days,You Can Call Me Billraised $796,527 from 1,385 investors.
Unlike with other crowdfunding models, Legion M lets investors own an equity stake in the projects that they support and the company states that doesn’t take any up-front fees until backers start earning a profit. However, it is worth noting that the company first uses funds to pay the people making the film, to recoup the film’s productions costs, and to pay any 3rd party costs required for an equity crowdfunding offering (e.g. legal fees, platform fees, credit card fees, marketing costs, etc.) For more information on an investor’s earning potential, check out theWeFunder page forYou Can Call Me Bill.
“We heard loud and clear from our community that they were interested in direct investments into our projects and they backed that up by raising over $750,000 — fully funding a feature film before we even had a chance to announce the offering was open,” Legion M co-founders Paul Scanlan and Jeff Annison said in a statement reported byVariety. “Our signature fan-first financing model puts audience investors at the front of the line and we’re excited for the success of this to serve as a prototype to build towards future projects with higher budgets.”
The film’s official synopsis reads:
Captain Kirk. T.J. Hooker. Denny Crane. Big Giant Head. Alexander the Great. Henry V. The Priceline Negotiator. These are but a handful of the innumerable masks worn by William Shatner over seven extraordinary decades onstage and in front of the camera. A peerless maverick thespian, electrifying performer, and international cultural treasure, Bill (as he prefers to be called), now 91 years young, is the living embodiment of his classic line “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” In unprecedented fashion,You Can Call Me Billstrips away all the masks he has worn to embody countless characters, revealing the man behind it all.
You Can Call Me Billis directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, produced by Kerry Deignan Roy and Jeff Annison, and executive produced by Shatner, Paul Scanlan, Terri Lubaroff, David Baxter, and Matt Kemner.
Related:George Takei Calls William Shatner a ‘Cantankerous’ Old Man: ‘I’m Not Going to Play His Game’
William Shatner Became the Oldest Person to Travel to Space in 2021
In October 2021, at the age of 90, Shatner broke records to become the oldest person to travel to space abroad Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-18 shuttle. As soon as the one-timeUSSEnterprisecaptain’s feet touched the ground, he started to speak about howoverwhelmed with emotionsthroughout the whole experience.
A year later, in 2022, Shatner published his autobiographyBoldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, in which he said that the experience left him with “among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered.” Shatnercontinued, “Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.”
