“‘Panic’ pushes Hollywood buttons”

Michael Flemming is reporting this story in Variety:

Ghost House Pictures has made a seven-figure deal with a Uruguayan commercials director to direct his pitch for an alien invasion film — an exceptional deal for a helmer making his feature directing debut.Most first-time helmers make $250,000, but Fede Alvarez scored his million-dollar deal based on the heat generated by “Ataque de panico!” (Panic Attack), a four-minute, 48-second short about an apocalyptic robot attack Alvarez directed through his commercial production house for less than $500. After the short found its way to the Internet and Kanye West featured a link to the film on his blog, a 30-year old who was not on anyone’s radar outside the Uruguayan blurb market suddenly found the biggest agencies in Hollywood in a panic to sign him. That created a chain reaction of activity over two weeks that led to a trip to Hollywood, where he met with every major agency, management firm and law firm that responded to the short.

After he signed with CAA, Anonymous Content and attorney Karl Austen, Alvarez made a preemptive deal with Ghost House that sets the helmer up to make his first film under the guidance of one of his directing heroes, Sam Raimi, who formed the genre label Ghost House within Mandate Pictures with Rob Tapert, Nathan Kahane and Joe Drake.

So while Hwood trolls remakes, sequels, and pre-branded brands, they continue to look for new talent to make original movies, albeit on the lower end of the budget scale:

That an unknown could put himself on the map by placing his film on the Internet shows how much the Hollywood landscape is changing and how hungry financiers and studios are to find a filmmaker who may deliver the next “Paranormal Activity,” “District 9” or “Twilight.”

Did I say “original movies?” Check out the video:

Um, quick question: How is this any different than War of the Worlds, Transformers 2, or all the other disaster porn movies we’ve been subjected to of late? At least District 9 had an interesting central conceit: Aliens stuck on Earth and assuming the unwanted role of illegal ‘aliens.’ But this?

In other words, haven’t we seen this whole damn thing time and time and time before?

Now clearly Sam Raimi is a smart guy, right — or else why would he do this?

After Alvarez pitched an original idea for an alien invasion idea to the “Spider-Man 4” director, Ghost House closed a deal with Alvarez’s new reps that guarantees him a six-figure holding deal to wait while Ghost House hires a high-end scribe to turn the idea into a feature.

Actually a pretty funny line there: “After Alvarez pitched an original idea for an alien invasion idea…” I’m pretty sure Flemming meant to say “an alien invasion story,” but hey, you never know. Not unimaginable to see Alvarez in the room pitching, “I’ve got this idea for an idea.”

5 minute sizzle tape! Pitch an idea for an idea! Disaster porn! And boom — $1M directing deal!

No, no. For now, I refuse to go down that track. Until I hear otherwise, I’m going to assume that Alvarez has come up with a fresh spin on the subject, a new angle on the alien invasion storyline. It could happen, right?

Hello?

Is this mic on?

[The low moan of a dusty cynical wind…]

How about you? How do you react to all this?

H/T to HRH over at Princess Scribe for the heads-up on this story.

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