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But there will be plenty of competition for your eyeballs. AtomFilms' main rival, the six-month-old iFilm.com puts up just about every movie that comes in--about five a day. With 500 movies on the site, iFilm can boast at least one breakthrough. Dave Garrett and Jason Ward made the nine-minute "comedy" Sunday's Game, in which five old ladies gather around a bridge table and gab about their infirmities while passing around a gun in a game of Russian roulette that gets funnier and funnier as the blood stains more and more of the tablecloth. Last month they got a TV development deal from Fox. This is what happens when you people refuse to watch that half-hour version of Ally McBeal.
Fox is willing to take these kinds of chances because it's nervous about the rumors of old media's demise. Also, there's a limit to how many times they can show The Simpsons every day. "It's too late for the studios to panic. They've already lost," says director Francis Ford Coppola, whose Zoetrope.com allows filmmakers to read scripts, get feedback, hire directors and show their work. "The minute artists don't need the studios, they'll abandon them." Of course, for now, the big studios still have the stars, the production pizazz and the marketing muscle that bring in big profits. Few indies can compete with that. But some stars are already starting to eye the door.
The cheapness of digital video allowed Ethan Hawke to shoot The Last Word on Paradise, a feature starring his bankable buddies Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Zahn and Robert Sean Leonard. He calls it the best creative experience of his career, which may not sound like much, but his excitement is very convincing. "There's no excuse for young filmmakers not to make a movie. Anyone can make a movie the way anyone can sculpt or write a book or paint," he says. "The James Joyces have not yet begun to work on film because they're not the guys who want to sit around and work with executives."
They may not be fun to sit with, but these aren't the kind of people who give up their seats. Within a few months, DreamWorks and Imagine Entertainment plan to introduce Pop.com They say they want to keep the Web's indie feel, and the below-$10,000 price tag for less-than-six-minute episodes allows the studio to take chances on ideas like this: a talk show where the host slams a shot of tequila before asking each of his six questions.
Even the ideas from Pop co-founder Ron Howard are edgy: he's considering a regular two-minute show called Smoking Break that follows characters standing around outside on a smoking break. And this idea: an animation of a celebrity's real dreams, accompanied by professional analysis. "I first looked into public-access television when I was doing Happy Days in the late '70s, and I didn't have time," he confesses. Now, without the constant pressure of figuring out how to deliver lines like "Sit on It," he has the time.