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You'll Only Have Yourself to Blame

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (17)

Thumbnail image for mega-shark-vs-giant-octopus-560x345.jpg

The SyFy Channel is taking the ultimate step in outsourcing: They’re just making the fans write their “SyFy Original Pictures” monster flicks that they air on Saturday nights. They’re setting up a website called “B-Movie Mogul,” where suggestions can be submitted and votes can be cast. The end result will be a movie with a plot, costumes, visuals, characters, etc. determined by the viewers. They’ll then make the movie and air it.

SyFy is providing a starting point of three basic plots: an apocalypse, a Bermuda Triangle monster, and Roswell aliens. From the description of the endeavor, it doesn’t sound like it’ll just be a choose your own adventure designed by corporate committee. The choices at each stage of development will have been generated off of fan suggestions on the site. As disposal network executive Thomas Vitale says: “We constantly have fans e-mailing with compliments, complaints and questions about our movies, and this is a way of involving the fans in a new way.”

Of course, he then goes on to say: “When you have a lot of people working on something, good ideas will come out of it.” Yeah buddy, because “that looks like it was designed by committee” is a compliment.

IGN is partnering with SyFy to provide the website, which is odd in a number of ways. First, there is no mention of this anywhere on IGN’s site. Second, IGN specializes in video game news coverage, so it’s unclear what the connection is other than “those guys have a website, maybe they can help us.” It also sets a dangerous precedent of collaboration between television (i.e. art) and video games (i.e. not art), that cannot help but end up on someone’s lawn. Third, neither “bmoviemogul.com,” “bmoviemoguls.com” or any other likely combination is currently registered. So they might want to look into that, unless one of you fine folks gets to it first.

This has a whole obvious rant just waiting to ring out, with a bunch of righteous anger about the sanctity of art, the vision of the artist, the sacrifice of creativity to the lowest common denominator. But the thing is, I can’t quite work up the fury at this because, come on, it’s SyFy Original Pictures, the studio that gave us Mansquito, S.S. Doomtrooper and Mega Snake. Can the lowest common denominator really ruin artistic credibility more than “bicycle kick the flying piranhas?”

And think of the possibilities. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed Pajibans can get Godtopus into a SyFy Original movie. Indeed, they are the only ones who can.

(source: THR)









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Comments

I got yer SyFy original RIGHT HERE:

http://www.isaacsplode.com

*grabs junk*

Posted by: Paul Southworth at June 22, 2010 10:01 AM

Godtopus vs. Hollywood: The Rightousnessess.

Posted by: admin at June 22, 2010 10:02 AM

I think this is brilliant. Who else will offer up the opportunity to see a Conan rip off fight a Human Centipede rip off while defending the world from a Bermuda Triangle Monster.

Posted by: lubeg at June 22, 2010 10:26 AM

Is the Skiffie channel getting rid of their stable of writers that consists of twelve-year-old boys with massive head trauma?

Posted by: rajah rabbit at June 22, 2010 10:28 AM

Look, they could just put "Breasts" as one of the elements and they would win every vote. That's how USA's "Up All Night" worked after all.

Posted by: Mrcreosote at June 22, 2010 10:46 AM

I think the "giant breast that goes beserk" thing has already been done in "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex, But Were Afraid To Ask." I think John Carradine was the mad scientist, too. And of course, there was Gene Wilder and the sheep who was wearing a garter belt and nylons. Damn, I'm going to have to watch that movie again. I remember it being bad. It would make a good MST3K evening.

Posted by: BWeaves at June 22, 2010 10:52 AM

FINALLY! I knew the day would come when I would find a venue for my message to be heard. You better believe that I have the perfect script for this. It's a multigenerational sci-fi saga set in the distant future during the reconstruction after a near-apocalyptic event. An in-depth examination of the price for survival and what it means to truly be free, it has a byzantine plot structure, humor, pathos, elements of time travel, cybernetics, and cloning. Let's just hope those voters feel the same way that I do about full-frontal nudity from a MegaPanda.

Posted by: jM at June 22, 2010 10:55 AM

Quite honestly, I fully believe that the fans will produce a much higher quality of product than any of Sci-Fi's current fare.

And really, how much worse could the fans do?

Posted by: I Refuse to Call it Anything But Sci-Fi at June 22, 2010 11:10 AM

Uh, "B-movie," SyFy? Try F or G.

They should take the money that they plow into cruddy "original programming" and produce more series like "Warehouse 13" and "Eureka." I'm not sure how much they spend on their crappy made-for movies (obviously not too much), but even the worst TV production is a lot of money. It could be better spent than on a movie about a giant shark attacking the Golden Gate bridge. Who watches this shit?

Posted by: Slash at June 22, 2010 11:54 AM

And by "original programming," in previous comment, I meant the crappy movies, not the series. I'm guessing the actual good stuff comes from people outside of SyFy.

(quick Google)... one of the creators of Warehouse 13 is Jane Espenson, who I believe used to work on "Buffy" the series. Not sure about Eureka, but I'm pretty sure that's outside production too. That series "Haven" they've been promoting looks promising. Not so much for a couple of the other ones.

And they need to change their name back. "SyFy" is still goddam stupid.

Posted by: Slash at June 22, 2010 12:09 PM

I want that header pic turned into a poster. And I want that poster on the biggest wall in my house.

Posted by: figgy at June 22, 2010 12:12 PM

Let's just hope those voters feel the same way that I do about full-frontal nudity from a MegaPanda.

Something tells me that if they didn't it wouldn't make much of a difference.

That must be one scary-ass casting couch though.

Posted by: Vermillion at June 22, 2010 1:15 PM

I was sick this weekend and watched both Meteor Storm and Stonehenge Apocalypse. Both were terrible but Stonehenge Apocalypse was actually entertaining. The suggested method to solve every problem in a SyFy movie is "nuke it"... That's something I can get behind.

Posted by: Amanda at June 22, 2010 2:01 PM

Oh please, like anyone can out do the genius of Debbie Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas in Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus....

They already tried with TIFFANY and Piranhas and it was a poor man's "Orca".

Posted by: JuiceinLA at June 22, 2010 3:17 PM

What they need to do is incorporate an online casting call as part of this new process. I would submit myself for every project until I got to be ripped apart by a Bermuda Triangle Monster in glorious Flash-animated effects sequences. Then, I would gleefully use that scene as my entire reel as long as I could and bitch about why I can't get cast for film work.

Posted by: Robert at June 22, 2010 8:38 PM

time to put my fiction press skills to the test i wrote one about a really hot bisexual biracial stripper who fell in love with a Creature made of Jello one person said it was good art the other an anonymous flamer who said nasty things about all my stories i have methods of dealing with anonymous flamers i have the full combined forces of the republican party john Walsh my police chief and a life time of family service in the military backing me up if somebody comes at me like that and if somebody accuses me of Libel i'm not afraid to go to Jail to defend what i believe is right. cause i'll tel both God and Satan if youve been naughty or nice.

Posted by: Utah Dynamo at June 22, 2010 9:27 PM

I don't know how anyone could be upset over this, this is the greatest thing I've ever read.

People on the internet submiting ideas for crappy sci-fy movies.

That means were gunna have Bearsharktapus attacking pirate ships. It's going to be AWESOME.

Posted by: Ben at June 23, 2010 1:02 AM