George Lucas thinks the future of entertainment is in internet distributed "small" features.

Spending $100 million on production costs and another $100 million on P&A makes no sense, he said.

"For that same $200 million, I can make 50-60 two-hour movies. That's 120 hours as opposed to two hours. In the future market, that's where it's going to land, because it's going to be all pay-per-view and downloadable.

Aside from the fact that Lucas is authoritive on such issues, its intuitive as well.

I went to the video store the other evening and cruised the racks from A to Z and found not one thing I wanted to watch. The lovely bunny brought over a copy of "Poseidon" to consider, but in the end we decided we already saw that movie back in the 1970s.

"Poseidon" illustrates Lucas' point extremely well. Made for 160 million, it had a U.S. gross of 60 million. If you have 160 million to spend on a movie, wouldn't you expect to spend it on a more imaginative property? Did they see the 1972 version? That one wasn't very good either.

From my point of view at least, what is being done on television is significantly more compelling than what I'm seeing in the theater these days. I just saw an excellent program on the Mexican War--no doubt on of those "50-60" small projects that could be done for what one mega-picture costs these days. Lucas extrapolates the two remaining problems--marketing and delivery. I think its inevitable that we will have internet-based entertainment in the very near future--the technology exists right now. As far as the marketing goes, Lucas knows that branding is going to be the solution to the obscurity of too many choices. Would you watch a Lucas production that you could download from the web?

Absolutely.

I would really hate to be one of the paleomedia crowd right about now...