I would also say that this isn't a free option for a guy wearing a trench coat on Hollywood Blvd. This is, by the amounts offered, a free option with a major studio.

Think about it this way: would you give a free option to Paramount if it were legal? If my script had been laying there without prospects, you better believe I would.

And I have. So, come on in. The water's fine. Compete with me. I dare ya. And good luck to us.

One further thing: the objections I've seen to this remind me of that old observation about the generals always fighting the last war, Westmoreland in Vietnam fighting WWII or Korea.

This is a new era. If you haven't noticed, the web is changing the arts and the media. The music business nearly went under until iTunes rescued it from the funeral pyre. Printed newspapers and magazines are slowly but surely going down as a paper medium.

The folks who are behind the curve on this thing are not the web companies, it's the WGA, movie studios and producers with their heads in the sand, and anyone else who doesn't see the paradigm shift.

It all depends on who uses it and how it's used.

TriggerStreet.com (the online offshoot of Kevin Spacey's production company) was launched almost a decade ago with much the same purpose and principles, and as far as I'm concerned, it's never grown into anything but a realm of amateurs. The claim is that if a script gets voted to the top of the site, Kevin Spacey himself will consider producing it, but I don't believe that's ever happened. Sadly, even the scripts that are considered the best are usually poor quality (as reflected in the professional ScriptShark reviews they receive). I don't think there was ever a critical mass of talented writers using the site, and as a result, the only people who continue to be attracted to it are newbies or hobbyists.

Amazon Studios could end up in a similar position, especially since it's likely to be flooded initially with bad material. Everyone who's capable of getting to page 100 on Final Draft is going to be uploading scripts like crazy, and furthermore, newbie writers will be logging in constantly and voting up each other's material on a quid pro quo basis (I'm pretty sure that's what happens on TriggerStreet). Whether good writers with good material will want to trudge through all that remains to be seen.

The most intriguing aspect, which is also likely to be the most controversial, is the open rewrite situation. I don't know how I feel about that, but it sure is a paradigm shift. (It's also an opportunity for lots of writers to waste their time redoing someone else's work rather than coming up with original material of their own.)

I have a feeling that it will end up being a better resource for filmmakers than for writers. Directors are being hired off YouTube videos these days, while it seems like writers are still mostly getting through the old-fashioned way.

Totally agree with Lee.

I posted about it here and am trying to solicit feedback here for how people would change it to make it better.

The world is changing. We need new ideas and innovation.

I just don't understand the vehemence everyone seemed to react with. Could it be better? Of course. But is this a group of tricksters laughing in a boardroom somewhere at the rest of us? No. I don't believe that at all.

I'm not down with the whole my-screenplay-gets-fed-like-chum-to-the-hivemind thing.

I came across this blog post warning, and found it really interesting:
http://artfulwriter.com/?p=1103

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