Every year or so the "
Death of Hollywood" is announced. Again. But then, in defiance, it keeps on chugging along, as "dead" as it never was. Something comes along and revitalizes it in a way that spurs on the next thing. And what exactly is that next thing? It is always one of the standard options: Prequel, Sequel, Remake, Adaption or sometimes, if we're lucky, it's a crazy thing called an Original Idea.
But why all the retreading? Why do studios seem to shy away from the Original Ideas?
Lot's of reasons. One well-grounded belief is that too many Studio Suits have moved up from marketing departments, or are highly/overly marketing conscious, and for those types, the biggest hold-back for new original concepts is Marketability. "If I can't see the marketing in my head, how can I sell it? If it's too different how do I describe it? I have nothing to compare it to." It's all about risk. To start over the Spider-Man film series (as crazy as that sounds so soon after the last round with Rami/Maguire) is less risky than John Carter. Fact. And we all know how John Carter went this year don't we? And that was a well known book. It's a big money game and you can't blame studios for being nervous, sadly though, it's a mindset that actually slows the influx of "new".
A studio can only produce so much in a year and if half of that is reprocessing preexisting material, with another chunk dedicated to jumping on last years trend, plus the slice lingering in Development Hell, well it's a wonder anything new and different gets through at all. If only there was a way to quantify that risk, a way to show studios what we were most eager to see. What if we the consumer, could tell them what we wanted.
Louis Plamondon had very this idea. In this day and age there should be a website where upcoming movies could be voted on, to reflect it's popularity, interest and the eagerness of the audience to see it. It could be a yardstick for studios in that regard, basically making "Buzz" tangible. But there was no such site.
So, Louis created The
SleepySkunk.com
It is a place designed to inform Hollywood exactly how we would spend our money. Movies in all phases of development are listed, some are not even in development, yet, just ideas or concepts, waiting for attention. The trial run has been going strong and a 2.0 upgrade is looming, but
this week Louis is making
headlines and even the front page of
Variety - but not for the bold website that looks to revolutionize Hollywood, no, no. See, you should know that Louis also makes Mash-ups time to time. Very good ones, too. So it was no surprise to me, when what started as a half-joking idea on his Facebook page turned into a viral sensation.
I guess now's a good time to mention that I've been a "follower" of the Skunk's page for a while and saw firsthand-ish, the gestation that lead to him creating a 25 minute preview mash of all publicly released clips and trailers for The Amazing Spider-Man. The "Super-Preview" as he titled it, is a somewhat condensed version of the film regardless of a remaining 110 minutes still available only in theaters. Well, it went viral as you might imagine and in the process was taken down a few times. It's garnered him a slice of notoriety plus hate email and the fact that such a chunk was even available, has pushed to the front the reoccurring debate of "how much is too much?" So there are a few questions we'd like to ask him… I mean, what kind of madman thinks he can take on Hollywood, anyway?
Maybe we should just ask Louis....
