WILL BIG BIZ ALLOW IT?

Steven Soderbergh plans eventually to cut the studios out altogether. This, he says, is what digital technology can unleash. "You'll see named film-makers self-distributing their own films. That's where this is going to go. If I can go to the bank and get money to make the movie, and in two to four years' time the digital changeover has happened in the US and all the theatres are digitally projecting, I'll just go right to the theatres and make a deal with them. I'm certainly going to pursue that."

This would be the best situation for all filmmakers especially the "Garage Kubricks" around the world(and I count myself as one of them) who dream of running their own movie industries like sole proprierterships. But will it ever happen? We have control over the cameras and post production through affordable software but what about distribution? In the 70's Coppola dreamt of the same future and put his money into Zoetrope to do so. But he still couldn't control distribution and that was the big mistake. He said that they all thought if they could own the equipment to make the films and get the stars in front of them, they would be home free. But since the studios had such an iron clad control over DISTRIBUTION, there could be no real revolution. Things MAY be different now with the wild west of the internet allowing for direct sales and download. But that is fraught with business peril as well. I'll be watching the day and date release of Soderbergh's BUBBLE very carefully and hope that someone will make a slightly more commercially viable project in this manner to really test the waters-