2008-11-29

Dr. Horrible is profitable

The Dr. Horrible DVD is now available for pre-order on Amazon.Com. Previously, I commented on the awesomeness of Dr. Horrible and on Jon's application for the Evil League of Evil.

To recap, Dr. Horrible is Joss Whedon's what-I-did-over-writer-strike-vacation project. It's a web based musical about super villains and super heroes. You can watch it here.

The DVD has extras, inlcuding fans applications for the League.

So how has this experiment in new media done financially? Joss Whedon included this comment on his blog, Whedonesque

Finally, I just want to say "thank you" to everybody who has supported this venture. We've been able to pay our crew and all our bills, which means a lot. What means more is proving that completely independent ventures can muscle their way through the blizzard of big-budget behemoths. (A blizzard of behemoths? Back to writing school, alliteration-junkie!) All that rhetoric about the future of entertainment that flew about during the Strike is still entirely true. We need to find our own way of producing entertainment. A lot of people are watching Dr. Horrible to see if it's any kind of model -- way more people than I expected -- and it means everything to me to help pave the way for artists to start working and making a living from the ground up. There are a couple of real pioneers in this that I know personally: Felicia Day, I'm thrilled to say, and choreographer Chris Elam are both looking far ahead in terms of monetization and interactivity. Me, I'm more like Jimmy Stewart in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", but at least I'm out there. Thanks, he finally summed up, to you.

You can find his comment, and others, here.

The TV, music, and movie industries are facing incredible challenges from web resources (both legal and illegal). As the cost of production and distribution have plummeted, creating new content is within the realm of the average web user. The Lonely Island made its transition to SNL this way, and one day, perhaps Play Cole will experience something similar.

At the same time, cheap tools and easy distribution are no substitute for talent. Joss Whedon's project suceeds because it brings together a number of key elements, including Whedon's talent, Whedon's name, talented actors, great choreography, impressive musicians, low production costs, and a solid fan base.

In 15 years the landscape of personal entertainment will be radically different from what we've gotten used to over the past years. We are starting to see the new directions now. Dr. Horrible is one example of it.

Congratulations to Whedon and crew. You've done great work with this project, and I look forward to whatever comes next -- both from Whedon, and in the rest of the new media frontier.

For additional updates, you can follow Dr. Horrible on Twitter, which is how I first found Whedon's comment.

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