The producers of the Web serial and game Hollywood Stock Exchange began work last Saturday on their latest project: a full-length feature film called Atomic Highway. Unlike the average Hollywood production company, however, HSX plans to develop, market, and eventually partly fund the movie via its Web site.
"We're making development and production of the film part of the entertainment value," says producer Leanna Creel. The idea is to garner enough interest in its serialized game, which involves "trading stock" in Hollywood personalities and films, that the audience will consider investing real cash to help HSX finance its films.
Though at first it sounds quirky, this plan is only the latest venture from a new wave of companies that are creating online soaps intended as much for the movie theatre and TV screen as they are for a computer. Call it Not-Ready-for-Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time. Rather than looking at Web content as the final product, these producers hope to use online content to catapult them into the more high-profile, and profitable, world of Hollywood. While HSX plans to use its online audience to actually support Hollywood ventures, companies like Lifetime Television, AOL, and MGM are using the Web to pilot and advertise potential TV shows and films.
"Everyone thinks that combining ancillary media companies with real budgets will tide them over until the Messiah comes," says Charles Platkin, producer of soap The East Village.
Lifetime, for example, sees the Web less as a money-making venture and more as a venue for testing content appeal for a larger audience. Last month the cable channel launched its first Web serial, In the House of Dreams, to be both an online entertainment venture and a pilot for a potential TV drama.
"The Web is a new arena, the latest venue where you can pre-sell your content," says Brian Donlan, VP of new media at Lifetime. "We'll use this as a way to stave off development costs - see how well it does online before it moves to television."
Of course, success online is not easy: Almost 100 cybersoaps are currently vying for attention in Yahoo! Numerous high-profile serials have crashed and burned in the past months, including Ferndale, from AOL-funded Songline Studios, and the flashy political serial Candidate96, which died long before Election Day. Even a successful Web serial isn't always a bargain: The Spot, arguably the most popular soap in Web history, cost more than US$90,000 a month to produce as of January '96, and producers American Cybercast recently scaled back the frequency of its latest serial and laid off 12 employees due to financial hardship and advertiser dissatisfaction.
"Just doing a serialized anything on the Web doesn't make sense," comments Ted Leonsis, president of AOL services. In a deal signed with Hollywood mogul Brandon Tartikoff, AOL has committed to producing a series of content projects, each of which will start off as an online serial and then spin out into a book and a Showtime TV feature. "AOL has the carriage to take it into outside media and make it a channel that's branded and equitable."
So does MGM, the first major Hollywood company to begin development of episodic Web content, with six serials reportedly under way - all of which are being developed with an eye for how they'll work on TV and film. Expect to see plot lines coming from MGM that fit the prime-time mentality, such as one serial, Cobalt Moon's Angel House, which takes place entirely in a sorority house.
"One of the reasons [MGM] is looking at this show is because the potential for television is huge," comments Cobalt Moon partner Matti Leshem. "... there's even a Shower Cam."
