The director of Repo Man, Alex Cox, is nearing a $100,000 target on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to fund science-fiction film Bill the Galactic Hero.

With four days of his campaign to go, Cox has received $91,897 toward what would be his first film since 2009's Repo Chick. The British film-maker, who has struggled for studio funding since the financial failure of his 1987 "acid western" Walker, intends to make the movie with the help of his students at the University of Colorado.

Bill the Galactic Hero is based on the 1965 satirical sci-fi novel by Harry Harrison, which was written as a counterweight to Robert A Heinlein's neo-fascist 1960 book Starship Troopers (itself borrowed by Paul Verhoeven for a 1997 film that heavily satirised its source's militaristic leanings).

"Bill the Galactic Hero is a feature-length science-fiction comedy set in the far reaches of our galaxy, as humans wage war against a reptilian alien species, known as Chingers," writes Cox on his Kickstarter page. "It is extremely low budget, and relatively high concept."

Cox revealed that he was working with Harrison on the screenplay for the film when the author died in 2012. He believes that by using the University of Colorado for location shoots he can bring the film in for under $100,000 in time for release in December 2014.

Cox writes: "All the features I've directed have been completed and distributed, in theatres, on television, or on DVD. The schedule we've established for Bill gives us the lengthy post-production period which a good science-fiction film needs (and which the panicked schedules of contemporary Hollywood no longer permit)."

Kickstarter is increasingly used by film-makers to find funding for movies. In September, the Charlie Kaufman-scripted stop-motion film Anomalisa raised a then-record $406,237 (£250,600) via the crowdfunding site. Earlier this month the producers of US TV show Veronica Mars secured a spectacular $5.7m to produce a feature-length version of the cancelled detective series.