[cwb71]

And also those same fans are now less motivated to go see the film in theaters because their DVD is already pre-ordered, potentially hurting box office revenue.

It is actually brilliant, now he can go to the distributors and say "these thousands of people were so excited about this project that they paid to make it... so of course they will pay us to see it!"

[DanBC]

Maybe. Or maybe many of those people have paid to have the film made, and now will think nothing of pirating it.

[threeseed]

But then the point could be made that those thousands of people on Kickstarter would be advocates or "net promoters" for the movie.