Dr. Horrible and the Future of Professional Internet Content

The final act of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was posted today, and it's fantastic. In typical Whedon style, it combines humor, social commentary, and a surprising amount of pathos in to a 40-minute burst of creative freedom. The final Act is almost entirely sung-through, and is surprising and surprisingly moving.

This creative work is, perhaps, the future of professionally developed content for the Web. Whedon and his team made this film for "the low six-figures" during the writers' strike earlier this year. It was done without the funding or assistance of a studio system, and designed for Web-based delivery in mind. We all know that amateur content on the Web can and is wildly successful (hello YouTube!), but it's been difficult to find a financially successful outlet for professionally created content developed specifically for Web distribution. Yes, Radiohead did give away their excellent album "In Rainbows" for free, but there was always a physical CD + tour plan in mind. Nothing like this has really been done in film or television yet (the wildly successful distribution of porn and amateur porn, in particular, aside).

I'm fairly certain that when the film stops being freely available tomorrow and must then be purchased on iTunes for $1.99 an episode, it will easily stay at the top of the iTunes Movie charts for weeks. The investment will easily be made back. The DVD with extras that Whedon plans on releasing later this year will also do extremely well, perhaps even outside of his most rabid fan base.

Whedon is usually the exception, rather than the rule, and his production costs were lower than normal film or TV production because a) people were doing him favors and b) there was a writers' strike going on. If Dr. Horrible becomes financially successful, if it becomes _very_ successful, I think you're going to start seeing a lot more professional directors, writers, producers and actors developing original content for the Web and furthering the shift from traditional means of entertainment distribution to a true on-demand world. Bye-bye TV networks and movie theater chains!