Thanks!

To everyone who's sent emails and notes from across the internet about Chapter One of "The Murder Legion Strikes at Midnight."

I am very gratified that everyone has boarded the fun train [TM by Rogers] with us - from Gregg who took a chance, to the actors who gave life to my scribbling, to Scott and Matt who gave our hero a "look."

I look forward to answering some of your questions and dropping a few hints on my plans for the character and for New Pulp Media.

If you haven't heard it yet (and shame on you if you haven't) - go here.

Tomorrow! May 30th, 2009 --- 8 AM

If you're in the Los Angeles area and want to come by - please do! Lots of stuff to clear out of my shelves before I move. Here's my Craigslist ad (with a Google Map).

Priced. To. Move. (pun intended)

It's a Monster!

Get ready for buddy Dave Flora's newest creation:

DOC MONSTER!

TORCHWOOD: CHILDREN OF THE EARTH

Trailer here.

(And might I say the embed code they always send me from BBCA never works)

Captain Hazzard is Back!

Ron Fortier of Airship 27 sent me a message that his book CAPTAIN HAZZARD: Python Men of the Lost City is back in print via Lulu. This second edition sports an amazingly beautiful cover painting by Mark Maddox.

Go here to purchase a copy for yourself.

He Knows What You Fear!

Right here.

Thanks go to Gregg and the gang at Decoder Ring.

Enjoy... I have to get back to cropping video for my garage sale....Tomorrow!

LEVERAGE The Internet and Chat With The Kung Fu Monkey

1.) Who wants what?
2.) Why can't they have it?
3.) Why do I give a shit?

As the excitement builds over the return of TNT’s hit series LEVERAGE this July, fans around the country have an opportunity to choose which cities will host a special screening and chat with the amazing talent behind the series.

(Yes, you too can get this Monkey to chat with your town. This pic taken from an actual Leverage writer's room meeting)

From now until June 14, LEVERAGE fans can go to http://www.tnt.tv/series/leverage/heist/?contentId=47936 to vote for a city to host a screening. In the five cities receiving the most votes, fans will have the opportunity to attend a special screening of the exciting season 2 premiere of LEVERAGE, followed by a Q&A session with series executive producers Dean Devlin, Chris Downey and creator John Rogers, facilitated through the Skype online communication service. TNT will announce the five winning cities June 17, with screenings to take place the week of July 6.

TNT’s fast-paced drama series LEVERAGE stars Academy Award^® winner Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People) as the head of a team of thieves, grifters and con-artists who settle scores against those who use power and wealth to victimize others. The series co-stars Gina Bellman (Coupling), Christian Kane (TNT’s Into the West), Aldis Hodge (Friday Night Lights) and Beth Riesgraf (Alvin and the Chipmunks). LEVERAGE returns for its second season Wednesday, July 15, at 9 p.m. (ET/PT).

Fans can vote for one of the following cities:

Atlanta Baltimore Boston (Manchester) Buffalo

Charlotte Chicago Cleveland Columbus, OH

Dallas-Ft. Worth Dayton, OH Detroit Ft. Myers

Greensboro, NC Greenville Hartford/New Haven Houston

Indianapolis Jacksonville, FL Knoxville Los Angeles

Memphis Miami-Ft. Lauderdale Milwaukee Nashville

New Orleans New York Orlando/Dayton Philadelphia

Portland, OR Providence Raleigh Richmond

Sacramento/Modesto San Francisco/Oakland

Seattle/Tacoma St. Louis Tampa/St. Pete Tulsa

Washington, DC West Palm Beach

So Vote today!

G4TV: Fresh Ink for May 28, 2009

Video Games - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

INCREDIBLES #2 is ...Well, Incredible!

Chip Mosher over at Boom Studios informs me that INCREDIBLES #2 is going back for a second printing!

Is it any wonder with story by Waid and art by Takara?

Rush to your comic shop - OR - your newsstand and pick up a copy.

Pulp Legionnaires: Alert!

As I told you in the first Electrogram. Build your network of web portals through one interface and track all stats not only from those portals, but all of the embedded players around the web.

(It has a few bugs, but this is a significant step forward in putting sophisticated marketing tools in your hands so you can make money with your media)

Track who's watching. When they are watching. Where they are watching.

If you know your audience and where they hang out you can tailor your content to them. You can maximize your particular audience, and minimize waste.

Oh and FYI - this is the sort of thing we go over in the Electrogram. This, free links (when I find them) and behind-the-scenes stuff of what's happening with New Pulp Media. There's more, but you have to sign up to find out.

Hybrid Pulp Comics

Saw this the other day (see pic above too) and thought it might make an interesting online format for New Pulp Media.

The idea would be to converge the pulp and comic storytelling forms into an easily read online (or downloadable) format. One of the problems with reading online texts from your computer is the fact that your eye is easily swayed off the mark and you have to readjust.

However, text with illustration tends to keep the eye anchored. The brain associates the text with the specific illustration.

(The Kindle is a different animal in that it mimics print to such a degree that the anchoring isn't necessary)

So mixing in an illustration or twenty with the text provides for a more pleasant online experience.

So again, as in online video, the distribution affects the content which affects the experience.

Warren Ellis had similar thoughts re: Comics.

Our Robot Overlords Have Taken Over the Internet...

The meatpocalypse is upon us...at least according to writer-director James Felix McKenney:

"Starting today, visitors to New York Public Television station WNET's Reel 13 website can view Glass Eye Pix's award-winning film, AUTOMATONS, in its entirety. The film is available to watch streaming for free along with additional AUTOMATONS content, including an exclusive Reel 13 interview with writer-director James Felix McKenney:

http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/indies/indies-watch-automatons-online/714/

Also available is the option to download a high-quality digital copy of the film for anyone who makes a donation to Channel 13."

When people ask me what makes a pulp movie different than other movies, I point them to movies like AUTOMATONS and say, "Pulp movies are agile."

When was the last time you saw a recent indie movie like AUTOMATONS on PBS (or a PBS website)? As Jim says below, It's a perfect fit:

"I'm incredibly excited to have our film be part of Reel 13. I have been a huge fan of Public Television my whole life. In fact, AUTOMATONS is almost entirely inspired by my a large part of childhood spent staring through the snow at a tiny B&W television with a coat hanger for an antenna to watch DOCTOR WHO, THE PRISONER, MATINEE AT THE BIJOU, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and the classic films of Hitchcock as well as Universal horror movies on my local PBS stations in Maine and New Hampshire. I think we've found the perfect online home for our little film."

AUTOMATONS is the third film in Glass Eye Pix's ScareFlix series and is currently available on DVD from Facets Video. This black & white, retro-science fiction experiment tells the story of a civilization's lone survivor who continues to fight the robot war that destroyed her people. The film stars Christine Spencer (SATAN HATES YOU), Brenda Cooney (I SELL THE DEAD), Angus Scrimm (PHANTASM), Don Wood (PBS' COLONIAL HOUSE), producer Larry Fessenden (HABIT) and John Levene (DOCTOR WHO).

http://www.deathtotheautomatons.com
http://www.glasseyepix.com
http://www.monsterpants.net
http://www.scareflix.net
http://www.reel13.org

Take Stock...

Footage that is!

Pond 5 just sent me a reminder email today they have a bunch of fresh footage available.

Go check it out.

Then head over to the sidebar to use my handy dandy stock footage store. >>>>>

For Immediate Release: Knightmare Launches New Pulp Media

Radio Audiences to Thrill to
Internet Adventures of
The Knightmare




Bill Cunningham and Decoder Ring Theatre
network across internet to produce
2-part radio adventure,
"The Murder Legion Strikes at Midnight."

Collaboration launches media company to produce "New Pulp Media"

May 26, 2009 - Los Angeles, CA: Bill Cunningham's New Pulp Media (NPM) announces their internet radio adventure,
THE KNIGHTMARE: The Murder Legion Strikes at Midnight will premiere May 31st, 2009 on Decoder Ring Theatre (www.decoderringtheatre.com). This collaboration marks the first media release for NPM and a new radio adventure program for Decoder Ring which produces The Red Panda Adventures and Black Jack Justice for enthusiastic audiences worldwide.

"The Knightmare is a character originally created by poverty row movie producer Cameron Tyler back in the late thirties. Tyler wanted to create a movie serial and radio drama at the same time so they could promote one another. This is similar famous mystery man The Shadow who leveraged his simultaneous radio and magazine appearances," said Cunningham. "I acquired the rights to the Knightmare character Tyler had outlined, but was never able to complete because Pearl Harbor derailed his plans."

Originally, Cunningham wrote a movie script updating the character, but later decided to lay the groundwork for a new, web-based serial project by recreating the adventures of the original Knightmare for radio. Enter Gregg Taylor, head of Toronto's Decoder Ring Theatre company which had been developing new radio adventures done in a classic style for internet audiences.

"We met on the internet and immediately checked each other's 'geek cred," said Taylor. " We kept in touch and followed each other’s projects, often running along parallel lines like the online Astonishing Adventures! Magazine. The day came when we both realized that several seasons and damn near a million downloads later, Decoder Ring had grown into a swell outlet for the mysterious Knightmare… a way to start the ball rolling on a quest to conquer all media and finally get me a ticket to that movie that I wanted to see so badly."

The Knightmare is a hero cut from the same cloth as The Shadow or The Green Hornet. He is "The Master of Fear" whose catch phrase "I know what you fear" clues audiences in to his mysterious power to overcome evildoers. In this 2-part episode, The Knightmare goes up against Hollywood gangsters, the Police and yes, Nazis - the dreaded Murder Legion - who are here to rob a charity event taking place at the famous Griffith Observatory.

"The Knightmare radio adventure is definitely a ride on the fun train for those fans of old time radio, comics, movie serials and pulps. We've peppered the story with plenty of nods to our childhood influences, but what's really fun about the show is that it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the internet," says Cunningham.

This internet radio collaboration is the launch for NPM, Cunningham's company label for pulp-styled material he and other partners create and distribute via the internet. This includes adventure podcasts like The Knightmare; pulp stories and novels for digital and print; Comics and eventually Video serials. "The pulp publishing model was always "Make it fast, make it inexpensive (I won't say 'cheap'), but most of all make it entertaining," smiles Cunningham.

"Thanks to the internet and its myriad possibilities to collaborate, market and distribute we can produce a variety of entertaining pulp media with a high degree of style, quality and fun. I've been very fortunate to collaborate with people like Gregg Taylor, Scott Godlewski and Matt Bennett who publish Mysterious Adventure Magazine (http://mysterious-adventure.blogspot.com), and dozens of other people creating art, stories and other new pulp media."

NPM has already signed a publishing deal with noted author and filmmaker Donald F. Glut (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK novelization, Gold Key comics' THE OCCULT FILES OF DR. SPEKTOR, and the cult motion picture DINOSAUR VALLEY GIRLS. ( www.donaldfglut.com) to release several of his novels for Amazon's Kindle format as well as collector's print editions through Createspace. "We are collaborating with writers and artists to republish classic pulp in new, definitive editions as well as create new adventures based on the pulp template” says Cunningham. “In addition, NPM is cultivating our fans and our brand very carefully using all of the free web tools at our disposal like our Fans of the Knightmare Facebook Page.

We aim to create an interactive, innovative business model that brings the creators and audience together as part of the company. Scheduled for release later this summer 2009 will be author Glut's 1970's styled horror blaxploitation novel: BROTHER BLOOD (textless artwork by Nik Macaluso) and other higher profile projects to be announced.


(c) 2009 by individual creators respectively. New Pulp Media (NPM) is a trademark of Bill Cunningham.

A Thousand Words: Green Hornet

As I've been working on my Green Hornet short story, I felt like needed to stretch my muscles a little bit and create a Green Hornet pulp. This is me playing with Photoshop to procras... er, inspire myself to work harder.

Yes, that's it.

So, I decided to make a 1950's version of a Green Hornet pulp. While this doesn't exist anywhere except in my imagination, I thought I'd share. I found the image online , and I think it's from a GH Big Little Book. , but I am not sure of the art's pedigree.

I gave it a mix of elements from men's adventure magazines and a Hard Case Crime.

It has its flaws, but I would love to have a stack of these somewhere in the back of the closet.

Never Forget...

Wire Yourself In...

Recently Ted Hope over at TRULY FREE FILM posted his 38 Problems with Indie Film, and it's a good list. An excellent list even...but as I pointed out to him in the comments, he makes the mistake of thinking that we can recapture the 'glory days' of indie film.

As I pointed out, in my usual blunt MPB manner, that train has left the station.

And while I am far too young and way too sexy for my shirt to ever be called a curmudgeon(cough, cough), I also have to agree with many of the things in Jim McKay's guest post here.

Okay, Indie Film as we know it is screwed... good. It wasn't a good business anyway. Too whimsical, too full of itself to be a real business.

(and if any of you starts yelling out, "It's art, not business," you're an idiot. Any time you ask people for money for goods or services - it's a business)

So where do we take this business we call show?

Fortunately, there are many brilliant people out there, smarter than me even (cough, cough), who are rethinking how things are done in this digital age, and what promise that holds for each and every one of us of getting a ticket on the better, less expensive, train that takes your content to every place in the world there's wifi.

And they are Wired.

First off (H/T to Cousin Trevor up in the 'Peg) is David Byrne who discusses survival strategies in this new age.

Chris Anderson discusses this fundamental shift and what it means.

And while this article discusses automobiles, take out that word (or car, or vehicle) and substitute the word movie, tee vee, or series . You begin to see the possibilities of where media production is going.

Anderson puts it into focus:
(emphasis mine)

To all the usual reasons why small companies have an advantage, from nimbleness to risk-taking, add these new ones: The rise of cloud computing means that young firms no longer have to buy their own IT equipment, which helps them avoid having to raise money or take on debt. Likewise, the webification of the supply chain in many industries, from electronics to apparel, means that even the tiniest companies can now order globally, just like the giants. In the same way a musician with just a laptop and some gumption can accomplish most of what a record label does, an ambitious engineer can invent and produce a gadget with little more than that same laptop.

And while my Canadian brethren fight the good fight, I have to say the one thing they are ignoring (or at least not speaking of out loud):

"Only a fool fights in a burning house."

(Quote from Kang. Lesson learned by James T.)

So what does all this mean when taken as a whole? It means change. It means not thinking of media in the same way. It means doing different things outside your normal niche. It means pushing boundaries. It means you can stand on your own two feet.

It means Bootstraps don't chafe like Corporate or Government chains.

And there are those that will shout out, "But how do I make money at this?" Know that you aren't alone. Your own are questioning the old ways and coming up with new ones.

So connect the wires:

-- How DO you make money at this?
-- How can you MAKE it more efficient -- not only for yourself, but for others too?

You and your work are your business. Make it a good one, not one you have to tolerate because that's the way it's always been.

Read. Rethink. Let's discuss. Comments are Open as is the Bar.

Guys? This Is a Pulp Movie

One where the filmmakers didn't let the budget (or lack thereof) get in the way of their creativity.
Courtesy of Fresh DV , I present COLIN - a zombie movie made for about $70.

Trailer here.

Film clip here.

And a montage from the production:



and did I mention they're screening at Cannes?

This Is What's In My Head As I'm Staring At You

Aaah, Yes! Yet Another WTF Moment...

From MTV's Splashpage:

It turns out that Sci Fi Network’s revamp of “The Phantom” isn’t the only classic Lee Falk comic currently bouncing around a production workshop. Anakin Skywalker himself, Hayden Christensen, has now been announced as the lead in Mimi Leder’s “Mandrake,” based on Falk’s slightly less famous strip “Mandrake the Magician.”

The movie, co-starring Djimon Hounsou, will follow Christensen’s character, an “underground magician and escapologist” who is approached by the CIA to do some work after “a daring escape from an SUV that has been dropped out of an plane at the Burning Man Festival,” according to SuperHeroHype.com. Hounsou will presumably be taking on the role of Mandrake’s assistant, Lothar.

Mandrake and Lothar will be a familiar characters to any watchers of the 1986 cartoon series “Defenders of the Earth,” which starred the pair alongside Flash Gordon and The Phantom.

The top-hatted hero — and possibly his sidekick — will be tasked with breaking a deep-cover agent named Xi Shing Lung out from a heavily fortified prison in the new movie, and according to the film’s synopsis they’ll have to do it Jack Bauer-style with a 24-hour deadline. Everything, of course, will turn out to not be as it seems, and Mandrake will end up finding himself at odds with a government agency gone rotten.

Leder takes over the director’s seat which was previously reported to be filled by “Scorpion King” director Chuck Russell a couple of years ago.

No Explanation Required: Master of the Skies

(H/T to Andrew Salmon of The Pulp Factory)

Bill, What's it Like Writing an Internet Radio Adventure?

You write. You rewrite.

You worry that you're clear and entertaining even though this is your first radio script. You worry about getting the tone of a 1939 radio adventure "right." You worry about being able to give the actors what they need to make it sing. You work in all of those influences that hit you as a kid as being "cool."

You kill all your darlings, polish then hit "Send."

Then you wait...and wait...and wait...sending the occasional message to the elves in Toronto as they do their work. Then you wait some more...

until you get this.

And then the smiles come and you realize it's real.

Then you realize it's only the beginning!

This Weekend Is Dedicated To:

1. Finishing all my edits for FLY BY NIGHT and get to the actual re-typing.

(My process includes lots of red pens that bleed all over the first draft of the script making no sense to anyone but me taught in the arcane ways of pulp screenwriting)

2. Finishing this issue of THE PULP LEGION ELECTROGRAM.

3. Polishing the press release for THE KNIGHTMARE.

I had wanted to throw up a contest on the Fans of the Knightmare Facebook page, but it looks like I won't have time. May have to come up with something special for next week.

Support New Pulp Media.

Edit Red = Completed.

PRIMEVAL Takes A Bite Out Of The Colonies

This is a spoiler-free review:

Everyone here knows my love of Dinosaurs and time travel and all sorts of weird stuff that happens when you mix the two. BBC America has announced that this week PRIMEVAL will be airing here on the cable network and I'm here to tell you one thing:

YOU MUST WATCH THIS SHOW.

-------------------------------------
Season 3 for any series is the game changer... that point where the folks in the writer's room sit down and ask the hard questions:

- What have we done?
- What haven't we done?
- What does the audience think it knows?

There are big, top-secret things happening this season on PRIMEVAL. Game-changing things. Things that make you scratch your head in bewilderment, then slap your forehead uttering, "Of course!"

Don't miss the opportunity to laugh, cry, oggle, giggle, shudder and slap your forehead.

Primeval premieres Saturday, May 16, 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.

No Explanation Required: Hisss

Hisss - Trailer
by dreadcentral

I Like Anne Hathaway...

But damnit, I think I LOVE Nora Ephron....

From the "Future of Filmmaking" Panel at W Union Square by Syracuse University.
(as reported by Variety)

Anne:

"She said cutting her fee to make "Rachel Getting Married" was the kind of move that should be made automatically by stars who believe in low-budget projects. "Why make a movie for $30 million when it should look like it was made for 10?" she said. "'Brokeback Mountain' cost $11 million and it was absolutely gorgeous. I think I made SAG day rate for that one."

Nora:

Ephron said she mistrusted studios' frequent cries of poverty, especially their claims that talent and writer/director costs have hit them hard.

"I look at the movie business as this giant Ponzi scheme set up to compensate a small number of people," she said. "Everything about it is puffed up, including the executives. You wouldn't believe the scale of wealth in Hollywood. They live like pashas. I know people live like that here, too, but we all live in apartments so you can't see it."

And just so we're clear, I don't like this guy Michael Lynton a bit:

"I'm a guy who sees nothing good having come from the Internet, period," said Sony Pictures boss Michael Lynton, sitting between Anne Hathaway and Nora Ephron. "It seems to have done damage to every part of the entertainment business by creating this notion that people can get whatever they want right now, for free."

This would be quite the statement if Sony Pictures TV hadn't financed ANGEL OF DEATH and put it up on Crackle.com. What he's really saying is that the internet hasn't allowed him to arse-rape consumers the way that Theatrical, DVD and Television has so he sees no value in it.

Even then he's talking out of his ass.

Let's face it - the internet is for the rest of us.

Catch Up On Your Pulp Heroes

No Explanation Required: Mega Shark v. Giant Octopus

With Debbie Gibson!

From our friends at The Asylum.

Sold!

Kid Schlocko Loves New Pulp Media !

as evidenced by his blog post here.

Kid Schlocko aka Tim Shrumm is a pulp filmmaker who creates these incredible puppet theater films as well as DIY SFX at his blog LOST IN SCHLOCK.

Go check it out.

Major Spoilers: Scotty Godlewski

Our own Scotty Godlewski (yes, he's ours now... muahahahaahaha!) who designed our Knightmare logo and ad has a wonderful bit of pulpiness up over at Major Spoilers.

You can see more of Scotty 's pulpiness here.

Happy Mother's Day!

Dear Mom -

I know I don't write or call enough. I'm sorry about that.

I thank you for reading my stuff even though you don't necessarily get all of the things I write about. I thank you for the support. It means so much to have you and Dad in my corner.

It's a big month: The Knightmare, the script, a story, creating cool stuff for clients to use for Cannes, and of course the move. I know you're thinking of me and the rest of the family.

Just letting you know we think of you too.

Love,

Your son.

New Pulp Media Loves The Knightmare !

I wanted to pass along some of the linkage we've received for our upcoming Knightmare radio serial "The Murder Legion Strikes at Midnight" debuting May 30th on Decoder Ring Theatre.

The first is a bit of two-fisted promotion by our own Scotty Godlewski.

Dave Flora of Ghost Zero fame has tweeted for us: you can reach him here: @dave_flora

and "Pappy" Ron Fortier has linked with us over at Airship 27.

If you link to any Knightmare post or our Facebook Page then please shoot me an email and send me the link.

The picture left is from historic Mack Sennett / Keystone studios in Edendale (Now Echo Park) - a suburb of Los Angeles.

If the original Knightmare serial and radio show had gone forward as Cameron Tyler had planned this would have been where they shot it.

For the whole story, please join our Facebook Group.

And above all: SUPPORT NEW PULP MEDIA!

Knightmarish Happenings!

Go to Facebook and join us for more fun as we roll out the red carpet for that pulp media sensation The Knightmare who will debut May 30th on Decoder Ring Theatre.

The Shadow knows... but The Knightmare knows what you fear!

More info and fun to come.

Many thanks go to Gregg Taylor and his troupe in Toronto.

The wonderful logo and advertisement are by Scott Godlewski and Matt Bennett they who regularly take us on Mysterious Adventures.

Support new pulp media.

It's A Riot!

From the folks at Revision3.

Hear That Buzzing?

That's the sound of my furious fingers flying across the keyboard as I rewrite my movie for Andrew...

and begin my writing for Moonstone Books new anthology series THE GREEN HORNET!

I received approval of my treatment yesterday (some of you saw my glee via Facebook) and now have to get down to the grim and gritty adventures of the man who hunts the biggest of all game.

Wow. I'm writing the Green Hornet.

I'm also going to be making another big announcement next week.

Life is good (and busy).

What are they? They're The Mercury Men

This was just sent to me by Pulp Legionnaire Peter Noble.



Go to the website: The Mercury Men

We will discuss later, but note how the website is laid out:

Easy to subscribe via several options.
Easy to get info.
Easy to contact them and interact (Facebook, Twitter)
Merchandise.

The only problem I have is that the gallery is in Flash and you can't pull pics to further spread the word. They could have put the site's url in the corner of each photo and driven some more traffic.

But overall, very good.

I Will Be A New Pulp Baron...

From Matt Ridley's column in WIRED UK:

Consumer deflation is the whole point of the industrial revolution and its aftermath. Whereas it took 18 man-hours to turn a pound of cotton into cloth in the 1760s, it took only 90 minutes to do the same a century later. A person therefore needed to work a twelfth as long to clothe himself. Most of the great industrial robber barons got rich by making things cheaper. Andrew Carnegie cut the price of a steel rail by 75 per cent in 30 years between 1870 and 1900; John D Rockefeller slashed the price of oil by 80 per cent over the same period. Henry Ford’s first Model T sold for $825. Four years later he’d cut the price to $575.

It’s still happening today. Wal-Mart, Aldi and Ryanair won their market shares by ruthlessly charging us viciously lower prices. And here lies a cause for optimism in the midst of this recession. Even though jobs are being lost, houses repossessed and firms bankrupted, the underlying deflation caused by innovation is still going on – indeed, on the web, it’s accelerating. All over the internet, people are dreaming up ways of making things available to you more cheaply, more conveniently, more copiously and more quickly. That is what will cause prosperity to return one day.

(emphasis mine)

And People Say There's No Money on The Web...

Maybe not right this second, but by jiminy there will be!

From our friends at New Tee Vee:

More than 40 percent of young adult U.S. households (ages 18 - 35) watch web video on their TV at least once a month, according to new numbers from In-Stat. The research firm predicts that by 2013, revenue from web-to-TV streaming services will hit $2.9 billion.

Web video in this instance is defined as any video coming from an Internet source (e.g. Netflix, Hulu, YouTube). In the next five years, In-Stat predicts that the number of U.S. broadband households watching web video on TV will grow to 24 million from 2.5 million today.

One of the drivers of this transition will be game consoles, which, as we saw from the 1 million Xbox subscribers who activated their Netflix streaming earlier this year, are proving to be a popular way to access web video on televisions. Currently, In-Stat says 29 percent of 25- to24-year-old game console owners use those devices to stream video from the Internet.

You will see movies and TV Direct 2 Netflix.
You will see movies and TV Direct 2 XBox.

That is, if you target your content to this growing revenue stream of viewers who like video games, comics, toys and SFX driven movies.

In fact, you could make a low budget movie (Under $500K) and also sell a tie-in comic, toys and possibly an iPhone app video game. Then you license out to international territories.

Oh, but that sounds too much like work. Better to go the traditional film festival route and neglect the target audience entirely. After all, a theatrical release is what's required for real filmmakers.