A 30-day campaign generated by two Nashville men to save the making of the feature adaption of Blue Like Jazz, based on the New York Times Bestseller of the same name, now has become the largest crowd-sourced creative project in American history. The Save Blue Like Jazz project raised $345,992 from 4,495 supporters, topping Kickstarter.com‘s previous record of $200,641. Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Kickstarter.com is the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects.

Filming was set to begin Wed., Oct. 27, in Nashville, Tenn., and Portland, Oregon. Marshall Allman (True Blood, Prison Break) is set to play the lead role of Donald Miller. Tania Raymonde (“Lost,” “Crash”), Justin Welborn (Final Destination, The Crazies) and Claire Holt also have been cast. The movie, directed by Steve Taylor, will be produced by Clarke Gallivan (Ruckus Film) and filmed by cinematographer Ben Pearson.

“The crew in Nashville that didn’t have work until you helped us thanks you; the writers who really wanted to see their story on the screen thank you; our mothers thank you; the actors who live to bring other characters to life thank you; the musicians who will make the soundtrack thank you; the real life characters whose lives will be reflected in the story thank you; the people who were turning toward cynicism thank you; everybody who was about to give up before they heard this story thanks you; and I thank you,” said Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz in a blog post the last morning of the campaign, Mon., Oct. 25.

After seeing the news on the author’s blog that the movie was being put on indefinite hold due to a lack of funding, two fans of Miller’s famous Blue Like Jazz, Zach Prichard and Jonathan Frazier, created a grassroots-style effort to save the film with the launch of SaveBlueLikeJazz.com.

One of the movie’s investors committed to matching the amount raised if their campaign reached $125,000 (See the original video post from Prichard and Frazier. The website encouraged viewers to download and pass along “Save Blue Like Jazz” posters, place Twitter hash marks of #savebluelikejazz, “Like” on Facebook and most importantly donate on Kickstarter.com. Pledge incentives included recorded voicemails from Miller, “Associate Producer” credits in the film’s end titles, T-shirts, screening tickets, copies of Miller’s script, digital downloads, personal thank-you calls from the film’s director and more.

Miller’s Blue Like Jazz has sold 1.3 million copies to date, and the writing of the movie’s screenplay was highlighted in his latest New York Times bestselling A Million Miles in a Thousands Years.