My idea to "Kill Hollywood"

Its a good idea because it brings in a level of transparency. But I'm not sure if it'll make a big dent on Hollywood.<p>Why do some movies do well and others don't? There are a lot of reasons. But if we were to simplify, there are 2 things that matter more than the rest.<p>1. The buzz factor.<p>Reason why studios pay $20 million to a well known celebrity is because they know it will generate the buzz and create expectations.<p>2. The story and the experience.<p>Once the movie is released, and the first wave of viewers go and watch it, then it all depends on how good their experience was - for the buzz to sustain.<p>To beat Hollywood, you have to become better than them at telling good stories well, and creating buzz that lasts to make money out of it.<p>You absolutely have to become good at monetizing the buzz. Only selling the movies for 99 cents is a bad monetization plan. You will never be able to fund a movie like Avatar. And if you can't do that, you'll never be able to take on Hollywood.<p>If I were to develop a plan to beat Hollywood, it would center around creating buzz. How to use the new media to generate buzz.<p>Maybe create a new incentivized market... a whacky idea like: the first hundred thousand people who watch a movie can share in its profits.

This would never work. If anyone is going to "kill hollywood" they need to address the massive costs associated with producing a movie not the money raising. If movie production could be taken down from $100m to $500k then <i>that</i> would be the game changer, but even that ignores huge barriers and reasons Hollywood exists.<p>To "kill" Hollywood people need to address the costs, not the money raising. Crowd sourcing $1m is close to impossible, crowd sourcing $1m on a regular basis is even harder and crowd sourcing $10m+ on a regular basis? never going to happen. Even if it was achieved once or twice, as soon as a movie doesn't meet expectations the idea will fall apart, if costs are reduced to much lower levels, losing a crowd sourced $500k because the movie sucked is much more palatable than $10m.

What you're proposing is no different than most independent production companies. LA is flush with such businesses already; I've worked for a few of them. Another indy production house is not the solution. I said it in the previous thread, and I'll say it again: What's needed is a contemporary Roger Corman. <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/cormansworld/" rel="nofollow">http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/cormansworld/</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Corman#.22The_Corman_Film_School.22" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Corman#.22The_Corman_Film...</a><p>Hollywood has backed itself into a corner using the exact same methodology that you outline in your new studio: both assume that films are widgets, and great ones can be reliably produced with high frequency if the secret formula is discovered. No such formula exists. Every film is a one off, and many of the biggest hits were perceived as certain flops before their release (Star Wars), just as many sure things have tanked (Cowboys &#38; Aliens).<p>As I've said before, the solution isn't to become more cautious, but more bold. You studio should be based around locating new, young talent (writers, directors, actors and producers), giving them steady work in exchange for reasonable salaries (kids right out of film school are thrilled w/ $30K a year) and creating an environment where said talent can work on a high volume of projects over a short time period with limited commercial risk. No one should ever feel that failure on any particular project will result in a ruined career - the omnipresence of that fear is what has given rise to timid film-making in the mainstream. Projects should be shot in under two weeks, and should have budgets ranging from $10 - 100K. You should be designing your studio to accommodate modest returns, while accounting for inevitable flops. Never presume you know what will sell, and you might make it.<p>Film-making isn't a business. Film-making is an art. The best art is achieved via iteration: practice, release, refine, practice, release, refine. Build a studio designed to lose money for two years. In the first year, plan to attract at least 50 young directors, 100 young actors, and 100 young writers. There's no shortage of talent in LA (300 hungry young artists step off the bus in LA every day) but sifting the wheat from the chaff will be exhausting. Do the work, it will be worth it. Build a production schedule geared around low budget genre films, produced in 12 days and costing an average of $35,000 a piece. Ideally you'd be releasing 50 - 75 films a year. Over the first two years of your studio's existence, you'll have released 100 - 150 films. With each film, you'll be able to try new and different release and marketing strategies. You'll be able to gather detailed audience feedback on each film, and at the end of that two years, with a mountain of data behind you, you'll start to have a very strong idea of what sells and what doesn't. What kinds of films your audience is interested in, what kinds of actors, plots and situations they enjoy, and how you can produce films with those elements in the cheapest, quickest way possible. In the third year of your studio's existence, you might start to break even. In the fourth year, every major studio will be begging to work with the radical young talent that your studio has done such an amazing job at cultivating.<p>In other words: Step One, collect underpants.

There really isn't anything revolutionary or innovative in this. It's basically the same exact model as Hollywood with different players.<p>In addition, if the only distribution model is online streaming at 0.99, you'd need to sell 10M views to just break even. Yes, this can be achieved for a single hit, but for every single one to break even is similar to the current model.<p>One of the key things with the internet and technology is that: 1) Technology has enabled talented artists, filmmakers, and musicians to produce high quality content at a reasonable costs. Take a look at all the quality production that is around on the internet. 2) The internet has enable low cost distribution and discovery service. This means that we can increase the number of distribution channels for much lower cost than the existing model.<p>Because of these two facts, this enables smaller productions (you don't need $10M revenue if your cost is $30k) and more niche audience. Think of all the long-tail movies that do not get made because the target audience is too small; these would become economically feasible with internet distribution.<p>The indie film industry follows this similar model. A lot of indie films are low budget films made by students and budding stars. These films and talent are then discovered by the big budget studios and brought into that fold. (Think of the indie film community similar to the open source community in tech.) They are often looked down upon by the big budget studios and the community is looking for that one opportunity to break big. They have as much distaste for the Hollywood model as the tech industry does. There is a huge opportunity in bringing them into the fold of the startup industry to counter Hollywood. Provide them a clear path of success without giving up much of their rights or stake and they'll surely jump at the new approach.<p>Lastly, the internet is a great talent discovery. Look at the number of mega stars that have been found on YouTube and other websites. The problem is that once someone becomes "Internet Famous", how do you turn them into "Real Life Famous". People like Justin Bieber have no choice but to fall into the hands of the existing production model.<p>Provide your consumers (in this case the movie production and the movie consumers) with a better product and all else will follow.<p>tl;dr -<p>1) Embrace the Indie Film industry -- they are desperately looking for a partner in taking on big studios. They have already been in this fight for years, that we have only recently just joined.<p>2) Use technology to assist in discovery.

This will not work. The problem has and will continue to be distribution and marketing, not content production. Any disruption to Hollywoods market space must center on finding a new distribution and marketing model that can attract the current content producers. Only by separating those two entities can you really disrupt the space.<p>Right now the people who distribute the content are also the ones who own the rights to it. That is why you have seen such a move towards limiting the rights given to consumers of the media. There was a time when a movie house bought the reel of film and played it as much as their hearts desired. they actually made money off the tickets. That was then shifted to have the theaters pay a portion of each ticket sold to view the movie , removing the ownership right of the theater. Now the theaters don't own the movies, make no money off tickets, and are dependent on the studios for all the marketing. If you as a theater owner tried to buck the trend they would just stop giving you the privilege of screening their films and your out of buisness.<p>There is a great symbiotic relationship between theaters and studios that just making new content won't disrupt. If you want to "kill hollywood" you need to focus on that problem first, once content delivery and distribution are separated you will open the market for a new generation of content companies.

I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if he just described the current state of Hollywood (except for the "straight to stream for 0.99$" part). Hollywood is a business after all. And they clearly have some silly algorithms at work picking potential blockbusters. I've heard rumors that even part of the scripting is algorithmic these days (component based).<p>Of course "we" could improve on the algorithms, but such a thing is not a startup idea in my opinion. A startup idea would be a specific way to improve upon the algorithms.

This idea clearly presents a lack of understanding of how the film industry actually works, and in turn, is presenting nothing new. Making movies isn't part that needs disruption.<p>Regardless of what your thoughts are about Hollywood, it's filled with a bunch of very intelligent, and very well connected people, with very deep pockets.<p>Iterative improvements here and there is not going to cut. Posts like these are obtuse show a general lack of understanding.

This idea to kill Hollywood is ridiculously misguided. There's nothing terribly wrong with Hollywood; I mean, it has a somewhat facile outlook that goes along with championing the individual over the enterprise - but this isn't the worst bias in the world.<p>The reason it's misguided is that Hollywood isn't the problem. The problem is the system of lobbying the government and the way the government operates to respond to this lobbying. Killing off Hollywood and replacing the dumbass IP protection fanatics with Hacker News will look like the same old problem of replacing one form of tyranny with another.<p>As a footnote, given what one assumes to be an audience including a lot of system analysts, the near-complete lack of this point of view is making me doubt my sanity. ;)

What goes around comes around. We delivered streams for DEN [1] over a decade ago, and any number of new "studios" since.<p>The problem we see is wrong headed thinking around distribution. Everyone wants to be an event, to drive TV or blockbuster sized audiences for a quick big win. The Internet isn't about that. The Internet (see amazon.com and books) is about breadth and depth of choice, made available to a wide enough audience that the quality of choice makes financial sense. Monetize that, and you've defeated Hollywood.<p>1. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network</a>

I think that very few directors would want to forego the possibility of their film appearing in theaters. Films are designed for theaters and to those who make films, the home-theater experience, which increasingly consists of a laptop on a bed, is a paltry imitation.

The path to killing Hollywood has to start from an understanding of how/where they make their real money. The post does a good job with a third of that answer-- Hollywood contracts are notoriously one sided so adding consistency and transparency to the process might create the appropriate incentives for creative talent to leave that model. In theory, that approach is already in full swing (see the independent film movement).<p>The other two thirds of the story are the international market and merchandising.<p>Even the worst film end up making money abroad. And those markets don't necessarily have access to the web. So addressing the how of international distribution (the non-web answer) will be a must.<p>And then to be genuinely disruptive, the last third of the solution needs to address merchandising. There needs to be a clear path for everything from action figures to cereal boxes. This one can't be done in isolation of other markets so an alternative ecosystem needs to be created.

Hollywood, megavideo and lessons I learned about charging for content online!<p>I have a popular documentary site which has been around for many years, streaming full length docs for small beer, it pays the hosting costs basically. But what I learned over the years that in order to survive (i.e pay the bills as hosting / streaming content is relatively expensive) is that you have to adopt the Megavideo model, i.e charge for content only after people are addicted to it. They used to force payment after 60 free minutes. I struggled to make any cash with a paywall system and only when I switched to pay in video system did it start making money. Clearly the megavideo model worked as they had 6 million in assets ceased apparently (poor sods).<p>I built the concept out into a standalone system in Flash and its at karsa.co.uk but for these days it would need to work in html not flash.

You have 7 ideas here, all plausible but untested. If you want to make progress you should write down why you think each idea is essential. Or what would go wrong if you didn't do each idea. What would go wrong if you charged iTunes prices instead of 99 cents?

I think this idea has a lot of strong elements to it. However, the issue that sticks out the most to me is the pricing model. $.99 per viewing? That would make making a profit incredibly difficult. It just isn't realistic.<p>Instead, I think a price closer to renting a movie on demand would work better with a bargain price for each view after that. Perhaps $2.99 or $3.99 for the first view and $.99 for each view after that. And then maybe when the viewer gets up to a certain view count, each view after that is free. This way, you can gain a profit with less viewers while also instilling loyalty in repeat viewers who are most likely to spread the word.

Aside from the API/streaming stuff, this is how crap is already made. Troma, Olson Twins straight to DVD, Tyler Perry, etc.

I am probably wrong, but aren't we risking a lot by using such a strong language as <i>Killing</i> an industry? Sure there are hundreds of mean studio executives who want to do nothing but maximize their own profits, at times at the expense of newer and in many ways better industries, but there also are thousands of others whose livelihood depends on the industry. Thousands, who might have been otherwise neutral or supportive of our cause, but not if we visibly and purposefully strive to kill their source of income.<p>Propaganda is something we aren't the best at, but Hollywood most definitely is. They might be aiming at destroying the tech/internet industry but they have been very cautious in choosing the right wordings so as to avoid any direct attacks (except a few who patronized 'nerds'). Even if they are using old school cliches that mean nothing if careful deductions are used, but most people would not care taking the effort. Most people would see that there are two groups fight - one that says they will save American jobs and livelihood while preventing them from illegal drugs and their children from pornography while the other group is trying to kill and entire industry. Sympathy can be a very strong tool, especially in elections (I am just saying this based on movies/popular culture - I have zero first hand experience about US elections/political atmosphere).<p>We should probably be careful that we do not end up just winning battles and lose the war - and there is no way that this is going to be a short one.

hmmm, production budgeting and scheduling pretty much works already like what was described here, even producers (executive ones, not line) and directors have a performance stake. Maybe there is a perception that productions are lavishly spending in drunken stupor (probably because of showbiz associated glitz), but almost every ship is run really tight in productions - real tight.<p>I've said it before and I'll say it again. Each movie or TV show is a startup, even if all are within a single studio/production company. You can't magically run out of budget and simply ask for more money. When that happens, you might get money to finish up, but you'll also be out of work and you get managed until project is finished. Every single item gets budgeted. Most money drains happen when deadlines are slipped, since when freight train of principal photography starts it costs serious money to operate and can't be stopped. Sometimes it can really be out of producers control (special weather needed, permits suddenly in trouble, actor dies...), but it rarely happens and every major production has insurance coverage for situations like that... but when it happens you get managed. And nobody likes that, it can tailspin the situation towards evil and gets your rep tarnished.<p>Also, $0.99. While it would be nice, simple arithmetic calculations on average budgets and viewings sing a different song.

I agree - there are strong points here.<p>I'm not sure if this was intended or not, but I think you are describing YCombinator for Movies + a distribution platform to support it. At least as I read it, these are the two strong thoughts that come to mind. The biggest issue with Hollywood is its lock on distribution chan nels - this is where the biggest opportunity for disruption lies IMO.<p>Perhaps YCombinator + OpenHulu(API) is the magic you are looking for? Keep thinking, I think this is in the right direction.

The two ideas that come to mind to "Kill Hollywood" are 1) Louis CK and 2) HSX.com.<p>The best example of how to "Kill Hollywood" is Louis CK. What used to go to middlemen like distributors instead went directly into his pockets, and it decreased the price for his fans.<p>The content providers, like Louis CK, need to come up with their own money, and then they get all the money. Take the distribution networks out of it. Charge fans a minimum amount of money, ie. $5.<p>The only difficulty with a movie is that the "content provider" is very distributed. There's the writer, and then there's the actor, etc. With Louis CK, it was all the same person. With a movie, it's a lot different. Not sure how exactly that would be split up, but only because I lack any familiarty with movies.<p>However, funding movies could use the concept from HSX.com where you can buy shares in a film before it comes out. The value of the box office receipts ultimately is split up amongst all the shareholders, etc. This would create incentive for people to get a prospectus for a movie, ie. the script, the actors, etc, and then make informed decisions and buy shares of a movie. This would give funding to the movie, and also create a good secondary market for people to gauge how well a movie will do.

Why not just browse successful kickstarter film projects and do this with stuff that people have already made? Wouldn't that be faster way to see whether it can work?

I think this suggestion kind of misses the point: the evolution of mass culture, at least over the 20th century, has moved from radio, to movies, to TV. The biggest growth in recent new media has been video games, and now, online social services and games. Coming up with a new way of making Hollywoods product isn't going to kill Hollywood - a NEW product that eventually replaces Hollywoods products will, or at least relegate "films" and "tv shows" to the status of radio and newspapers.<p>What series of incremental improvements (an inevitable wrong-turns) will bring us to that next paradigm of entertainment and culture? Will screens necessarily be part of the equation for that next leap? Will we accept passively soaking in this media, or will our participation be required?<p>We can think of experiences like ST:TNG's Holodeck or Neuromancer/Snow Crash's plugged-in immersive metaverse as science fiction, but so was the idea of full-color screens that respond to your gestures or verbal commands not so long ago. The YC challenge to all of us dreamers is what intermediary steps are needed to make a Holodeck a reality? Then, how do we start building the first of those?

To paraphrase Nelson Muntz of <i>The Simpsons</i> universe... "Stealing movies is a victimless crime... like punching someone in the dark!"<p>- Let's imagine this plan was executed and <i>turned out to be successful</i>. And let's imagine the studio generates some very big hits.<p>- Now, imagine that, even though the movies only costs 99 cents to stream, people pirate them anyway (the same way people pirate 99 cent iPhone apps, but, unlike pirated apps, anyone can watch the pirated movies -- not just people with jailbroken devices).<p>- Suddenly you'll have millions of people using torrents to get bootleg copies of your movies... enough people to where you can't get investors and others their needed financial returns unless you try to put a stop to it.<p>My question: <i>How do you put a stop to it without becoming Hollywood allover again?</i><p>That, to me, is the big issue here. So either you come-up with a theft-proof way of distributing movies or you try to stop it. Or shut down your business.<p>And adding interactivity to them is not the answer IMHO. I need my passive entertainment and so does everyone else who chooses watching a movie or tv show over playing a game at any point during a day.

I think he has some good ideas, but still contains the major flaw that the movie industry still has: A publisher. The publisher/producer maybe was a good idea when spreading an idea was still hard, and we had a lot of mass markets.<p>Even computer software was distributed through a publisher at the beginning (for example VisiCalc), but it just doesn't work.<p>Game developers for example seem to slowly get that they don't need a publisher but a distribution platform. Steam is a good start in that direction (but I think still too selective). If there was a platform that would handle distribution, payment and awareness, we could get a lot more movies that won't be big hits, but instead cater to the minorities. Because this is where we are heading. The music industry a really feeling that hard. There probably won't be any "Beatles" or "Rolling Stones" anymore, because distributing and spreading the word about some niche music in that niche circle is getting easier and easier.<p>And I think this will, in the end, be what will kill Hollywood, because there won't be a movie anymore that grosses multiple million dollars.

This kind of reminds me of the Wreck a Movie service (<a href="http://www.wreckamovie.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wreckamovie.com/</a>) from creators of the Star Wreck movies. They say it best themselves:<p>"Based on the experience of creating the Star Wreck phenomenon, Star Wreck Studios has developed a Web platform that is designed to harness the power of passionate Internet communities for creating short films, documentaries, music videos, Internet flicks, full length features, mobile films and more. www.wreckamovie.com is a social community, simple workflow and marketplace that builds communities around film productions. It helps get films done faster and at a considerably lower cost through crowd-sourced work on production tasks and online resourcing of expertise and corporate funding. The communities developed in production will also create a viral social marketing force that will get films seen through the hundreds of existing online and standard channels."

Interesting discussion. Most of the ideas in this forum have been suggested in one way or another - including the idea from the original post. I posted some thoughts on the original YC 'kill hollywood' manifesto on my blog as well - which debate whether or not Hollywood can really be killed. (Spoiler - I don't think it can be, although I agree with what YC is saying). <a href="http://blog.kingtoledo.com/2012/01/kill-hollywood-not-so-fast/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.kingtoledo.com/2012/01/kill-hollywood-not-so-fas...</a><p>I've also come up with a pretty compelling way for Hollywood (the TV business in particular) to embrace the new opportunities of fragmented communities and distribution. It's called micro-cable, and it's something that I think bridges the strengths of both the new digital world and the established Hollywood infrastructure. <a href="http://blog.kingtoledo.com/2011/12/micro-cable/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.kingtoledo.com/2011/12/micro-cable/</a>

Aren't people overthinking this problem? The studios have shown their hand; they're wearing their weakness on their sleeve. The thing they're most worried about is piracy. If you stop <i>paying</i> for their product, they believe they will fail.<p>Either you stop consuming what they put out, or you find a way to get it without paying. That's what will "kill Hollywood".

I believe this idea makes the same mistakes as many others trying to solve this problem. You're trying to fix a broken model by adapting a few of its pieces. But you're not looking at the big picture and trying to see how the pieces play together, or if you even need them.<p>Simply taking a Hollywood movie and trying to finance it with $0.99 per view will be just a Hollywood movie financed with much less money. Of course I'll have no hard data, but my hunch would be that this is far from viable.<p>The problem is deeper than that. The truth is that the Hollywood model carries with it many years of overhead that could be avoided today. Instead of doing slight changes we should be reviewing the the whole production pipeline and get rid of unnecessary dumb pipes. Technology can improve or even remove some of the steps. We need to make content creation cheaper, make it accessible to more creators.<p>Look at the startups at youtube.com/create such as xtranormal or GoAnimate. "If you can type you can create an animation". Just like wordpress brought journalism and written publishing to the masses. Technology can make the same for other mediums of communication. * If we build easier and cheaper tools, that anyone can use. Then we can turn more people into content creators, which reduces costs. * If we get rid of the whole silly copyright fundamentalism, then we can share content pieces between different productions. So creators don't need to reinvent the wheel each time.<p>Short version: instead of trying to come up with innovative revenue models to support over-expensive outdated production models. Let's keep building better tools that keep cutting costs down to the point that sane revenue models can support. I believe that in the future. Millionaire budget production content won't exist anymore, but it will be better than current ones, because we'll be using better tools. So stop trying to bandage what's broken, we're supposed to be killing that by building something better :)

I was nodding along until I hit #5 - pricing films at 99 cents, without any variation for the length of the work. That'd be like if both songs and albums cost 99 cents each. All you get is a race to the bottom with a lot of short derivative work.<p>$5 strikes me as a more reasonable price, as demonstrated by Louis C.K.'s successful experiment.

Hollywood is going to die not because we make a better studio (which would be a cool achievement anyway).<p>They will die if you just make better games and story telling systems.<p>Heck if someone just took dwarf fortress and got it to a stage where peoples fortress histories were converted into fantasy novels, you would have an endless fantasy novel generator/plot system, which would be worth the time to read.<p>Beat hollywood by competing on time. I don't know what the correct term is, but thats the leading edge/the place where the real battle is being won.<p>Whatever starts taking over the spare time people have, will displace all the other entertainment media out there.<p>I'd vote on video games, as one of the better attack vectors to approach this. And not the Micro transaction system (which is basically a casino/skinner box and now completely evil) but rather a system like EC2 which allows people to punch beyond their striking capacity.

&#62;Think of it as "Moneyball for movies" -- that is, what types of successful film productions does Hollywood tend to undervalue in favor of large, expensive (and tremendously risky) blockbuster attempts?<p>Thing is, this has been done, and the results probably aren't what you want to hear. Hollywood actually produces fewer family and broad-appeal genre films than the market can handle. (Check out this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Economics-Uncertainty-Routledge-Contemporary/dp/0415312612" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Economics-Uncertainty-Routle...</a> )<p>The reason for this mismatch between what the market can handle vs. what actually gets made is that Hollywood insiders actually do want to make dramas aimed at adults, which have a much smaller market than, say, animated kids' movies.

Consistent pricing is a very bad idea. It eliminates a lot of important market signalling forces.

Pretty cool idea, but i'm not so sure about the $0.99 pricing, seems pretty undervalued/cheap.

Here's my idea for making crowdsourced movies that might actually be good:<p>How about doing movies with a Richard Linklater's "Slacker" like script? In the movie, characters are followed for a few minutes and then someone in the last scene of that segment will continue that movie interacting with a completely separate set of people and so on and so forth. Rent it on Netflix to see what I mean. This kind of movie could be crowdsourced. Someone writes the script. Many want to be actors shoot segments. The winning entrants film short scenes where they call each other on the phone to move the movie along. It's like Redditt the movie. Would somebody please do this idea? Please :).

People have talked about indie movies and how they have no choice but to go to Hollywood to help them get exposure.<p>My impression is that film-makers depend on Hollywood not only for the distribution but also for the funding to make the movie. If indie movies go to Hollywood not for the funding (because they're already good at making quality movies for cheap) but for distribution, then I think we have an opportunity.<p>We should offer an online way to distribute these indie movies.<p>Say I built a website that offered to host indie movies online for pay-per-view.<p>The distribution system would be transparent. Say you've made an indie movie. You let me host it online and charge viewers to watch it, and I give you 80% of the revenue (or whatever is necessary for me to cover costs and make a small profit)<p>I'd probably screen movies for quality and hand-pick the movies I allow for viewing on my site (like literary magazines or existing film festivals). It doesn't matter if I have relatively few movies on my site if they're all good (and I keep releasing more of them). The site will market itself: people will constantly check back for good movies and tell their friends about this site.<p>This won't stop Hollywood from churning out blockbusters, but we can keep indie movies from falling into their hands. One problem is bootstrapping the site but we might be able to convince good indie film-makers who don't want to be part of Hollywood to allow us to distribute their movies (and thus establish the site).<p>It turns out a website like this already exists (possibly others): <a href="http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/</a><p>There are several problems with their site which I think can be improved. They don't provide enough "buzz" for their movies. No trailers. No big pretty posters. It looks kinda like Youtube. They also give out the movies for free.<p>Summary: I think with proper execution it's possible to create an online pay-per-view indie-movie website without too much effort (except you need to contact filmmakers). Such a site would provide an alternative to Hollywood for certain niches.

The only way we can get hollywood to innovate is to make a convincing case that by innovating they can make more money.<p>At 99c a pop, you would need _billions_ of views to compete with the income of a blockbuster [not to mention innovative] film like Avatar, which according to Wikipedia made nearly $2.8 billion. If you look at the most popular YouTube videos, you'll find things like Justin Bieber's songs with about 700 million views. Making the generous estimate that about a tenth of those viewers would pay for that content, you would make about $70 million, which is orders of magnitude less than what they do now.

A lot of negative comments here. This should be expected. Revolutionary and disruptive ideas never start with much buy in. That's what makes them innovative.<p>Remember when people thought it was impossible to put a computer in every household?

I can't help but imagine this easily devolves to funding porn. The films are cheap to produce, can return a great deal on their investment, and have a large audience ready to pay money to watch from the web already.

To challenge the model, you need to find a way to reduce distance between story-telling and the audience.<p>In the late 90s, television became a good place for creative people to work, because the industry gave writers freedom to break moulds that had contained them before. e.g. Buffy finished high school and went on to a next stage of life.<p>I'd focus on finding a way to deploy compelling stories so that they could be consumed for portables, browsers or airline screens on long-haul flights.

I've suggested that statuary licensing for video streaming[1] would be something that all tech companies could agree to support, and that Hollywood would hate.<p>I think it fits well with the "0.99c/view" model proposed here.<p>[1] <a href="http://nicklothian.com/blog/2012/01/18/why-the-tech-industry-cant-go-on-the-offensive-against-ip-laws/" rel="nofollow">http://nicklothian.com/blog/2012/01/18/why-the-tech-industry...</a>

Why streaming only? I should be able to download it to any device.<p>Also, don't forget to ban region locking: if you want to change or beat Hollywood, have the movie available as soon as possible to conveniently purchase and play from every country when you want on any platform from. Then you're really changing the game and are a viable alternative to torrents.

The big problem here is choosing the good films based only on the concepts.<p>Otherwise I really hope someone can do this. You could possibly set the price point higher though?<p>I'm not even sure that heavy advertising would be needed for the individual films, so long as you managed to attract a user base who expected high quality films they wanted to watch on the home page.

The reason movies get shown in movie theaters is because they help sell popcorn.Helping (local non"AMC" or "Regal" ) theaters make more money via a different film funnel could probably contribute. Maybe finding a mechanism where average people make money by showing movies might help as well.

I wonder if you can truly approach movies like start-ups. What would it look like to build an MVP for a movie? Is that the script? How do you get enough people to look at it to truly evaluate the concept? Perhaps this is why books that sell well are made into movies - proven customers.

I had an idea of my own, but it actually outgrew size of single comment, so I made a blogpost; it can be found here: <a href="http://emempi.blogspot.com/2012/01/better-world-for-movies.html" rel="nofollow">http://emempi.blogspot.com/2012/01/better-world-for-movies.h...</a>

My counter-proposal: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3455037" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3455037</a>

I'm sorry but this just describes a list of wants without providing any insights into how Hollywood already works, and then prices things from a consumers perspective.<p>Hollywood started off as studios where actors are essentially employees. They own vertically integrated enterprises which included distributorship as well as cinemas. (Read up on the Studio System).<p>This started to break down as studios gave certain actors a "star" billing and some actors become independently recognizable and started working as free agents. The trend persisted with now entire teams are assembled virtually on a project by project basis.<p>On the distribution side of things, secondary markets became increasingly vital. Cable, DVD rental, PPV, DVD sales and international distribution have overtaken box office takings.<p>The free-wheeling internet has proven to be a problem because some people who are watching movies at home are no longer accessing these through the monetizable channels like rentals, but instead are doing this through the free/unauthorized channels. I don't really know the size of this problem, as I personally don't like the idea of being shaken down by the MPAA or RIAA. Besides, I don't have the time.<p>Therefore to solve this problem for Hollywood, one working theory is that people don't mind paying a certain amount for the convenience of watching movies where they want it, as long as the price is "reasonable". This is Apple's model.<p>However, in general, the current way of negotiating individual distributor agreements represent a high degree of friction, and that locks out potentially creative ways for studios to earn back their investment.<p>If movie makers were to securitize its prices, alternate channels will flourish. I envision it more or less like a mechanical license.<p>One formulae may be based on days since first released and the size of the screen, and whether it is PPV or multiple viewing.<p>Then it is up to repackagers like DVD-makers, movie theatres, and online channels to reach the viewers. Repackaging may involve adding ads before and after the movie (brings down the cost of viewing), or even during the movie (as in TV).<p>If such a pricing evolves, I can see devices such as Roku offer a "legal" way to view a movie even if the user has downloaded it from a torrent. For instance, a user may be prompted whether they wish to deduct the price of the movie from their account in exchange for indemnity if they were prosecuted for illegal downloading.<p>In the big picture of things though, movies are a huge time drain on society. I, for one, would rather see people having to pay to watch movies. My relatives in Asia who regularly buy pirated DVDs from street stalls watch way too much movies and fritter their lives away.