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Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
2008 · TV series · 14 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jed Whedon
ComedyDramaScience FictionFantasy
Aspiring super-villain Dr. Horrible wants to join the Evil League of Evil and win the girl of his dreams, but his nemesis, Captain Hammer, stops him at every turn.
2 positive1 neutralfrom 3 commenters
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3 comments on Hacker News
For those unaware - it's showing the lyrics to a song from Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog - a web-miniseries from Joss Whedon.
Don't forget that this was the era when Fox also cancelled Family Guy and Futurama. Both of these series were able to be resurrected due to their DVD sales and syndication numbers. Fox made a lot of mistakes during that time, but were just learning about the secondary sales potential for their shows. I'd like to think that a similar set of shows would be able to stick around longer now. Those shows were able to be resurrected easily because they are animated. Firefly, not so much. But another show (Arrested Development) cancelled by Fox in that era is getting resurrected by Netflix, which while not straight to consumer is more direct than through the studios.
Also, Joss Whedon (and the rest of Hollywood) I think learned a lot about distributing directly to the consumer with Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog. I think that this grand experiment was a good template for future direct-to-consumer productions.
Unfortunately, you still have to deal with the problems of initially funding large movies. I can imagine a system where instead of having dedicated studios, you have smaller one-off production companies. These companies would then be funded VC style by funds that seek to mitigate their risk by diversifying their pool of movies. You could fund a few flops, so long as every now and again an Avatar comes along.
It actually has been done. Joss Whedon produced Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog during the writer's strike. It was definitely a high quality production. And it was well received. Also, after DVD's and songs on Itunes, Joss Whedon has recouped all of the costs.
I do see your point though. Making high quality video is very hard. It cost Joss Whedon around $200,000 to make. And Joss Whedon has a cult following, so just having his name on it gave the project a lot of P.R. And Joss Whedon has been involved with Hollywood movies and television shows, so he has the experience necessary to make a high quality show.
I wonder if the entertainment industry is headed to a model comparable to venture capitalism. Media Companies might be forced to split their services into two sections. They would act like a vc firm and give money to producers in exchange for a percent of the gross. And they could sell access to their distribution network. I'm sure that no media company would want to do this willingly though. It would mean giving up control over the ip rights, and they would have to find new distribution methods.
Hulu:http://www.hulu.com/watch/28327/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog-act-one
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Horrible%27s_Sing-Along_Blog