[nileshtrivedi]

You're assuming that the content has to have the same format as movies. Short videos (like the ones produced by CollegeHumor) can have a good script and quality visuals without involving a big budget. The market isn't "films". It is "entertainment".

[KaiserPro]

I'm assuming there is a market for 90 minute narratives.

CollegeHumour is only really competition for things like Archer, Family Guy and the like. So really only a competition for TV.

There is still a market for Movies, and its a large and thriving market (in the UK movie going is at an all time high.)

You're not going to kill hollywood by stringing together a few gags into a 90minute combo. movie42 is a good example of that.

People want content, and until you can provide content that is on a par, or better than movies, you are pissing in the wind

[wj]

In college we got offered free focus group passes to see The Underground Comedy Movie on Sunset. It was gags thrown together into the worst movie I've ever seen. We also got to see King Cobra that way.

It wasn't always bad though. We got to see 2001 as part of a focus group in Woodland Hills when they were considering releasing it to theaters. We were lucky there.

[ericHosick]

> The market isn't "films". It is "entertainment".

Kevin Spacey on this subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ukYf_xvgc.

[KaiserPro]

yup, but we are talking about "killing hollywood" which is films.

Longform is largely separate. People rarely gather for a single 20 minute episode of something, they do gather for an 90 minute film.

[greenyoda]

Exactly. Killing Hollywood doesn't necessarily mean beating them at their own game. Killing Hollywood means that some competitor (or perhaps several competitors) will take away enough share of the entertainment market to make Hollywood's business collapse. For example, TV shows have taken a large chunk of business away from the motion picture industry since TV was invented, but they're not feature films. A similar example might be tablets killing the PC industry: tablets are not PCs, but they've taken a large chunk of business away from the PC market.

[mikecane]

>>>For example, TV shows have taken a large chunk of business away from the motion picture industry since TV was invented

Major studios own TV networks today. It's all the same bank account. If your money doesn't go into the pocket labeled "Movie," you're putting it in the one called "TV."

[dylangs1030]

That's fascinating...but I can't find a citation online. How did you come across this? Is e.g. ABC owned by Universal?

[jaredsohn]

ABC is owned by Disney which owns Pixar, Disney, Touchstone, Miramax, Marvel Entertainment, LucasFilm, ...

A large chunk of TV is owned by {Newscorp, Disney, Time Warner, Comcast, Viacom, and CBS} http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart

Here is who owns the major movie studios: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_film_studio#1990s.E2.80.9.... Notice that with Sony the big exception, the list of companies is roughly the same.

[KaiserPro]

http://screenville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/attendance-history...

cinema attendance has been growing for a while.

Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment.

[greenyoda]

"cinema attendance has been growing for a while"

Absolute attendance numbers don't mean much. More interesting statistics would be: Hollywood's percentage of the total entertainment market and the earnings (profits after expenses) of the movie industry.

"Not even netflix is killing hollywood at the moment."

Netflix is mostly just a distribution channel for Hollywood. They're showing Hollywood movies and a big chunk of their revenue goes straight to Hollywood. They may be killing local movie theaters, but they're certainly supporting Hollywood.

[r00fus]

And Microsoft's revenues and profits have been growing in the past decade as well... I don't think anyone can reasonably conclude they're nearly as relevant as they used to be.

Large institutions don't get "killed", they slowly become irrelevant (and the perhaps die), or change to suit the new market in a much diminished role.

[KaiserPro]

There is no concept of maintenance in consume movies (the closest is netflix monthly fee) microsoft has years to sort out its problems, it is also highly liquid.

if a movie distie has a run of bad movies, it will become insolvent, which means that they'll not have enough cash to progress the movies in its pipeline. (For example MGM went tits up and delayed james bond by years)

[Spearchucker]

I like feature-length movies. Short films are a way to fill an idle minute, but otherwise bore me. No one I know spends 2 hours straight just watching short clips or movies on YouTube.

[drblast]

My wife and I spend quite a bit of time watching 22 or 50 minute TV shows in succession on Netflix.

I think that format is in many ways more interesting, as you can develop a story in much more depth than you could with a 2 hour movie.

[KaiserPro]

Thats longform/episodic, which is not the same as feature length hollywood.

However you are correct that 8x25 or 6x60 allows for far richer narrative. (The BBC's sherlock is a brilliant example of this 3x90 minutes of tastily thick narrative)