$300 YouTube Video Lands Filmmaker a $30 Million Movie Deal

How’s this for the power of the Internet? Federico Alvarez, a Uraguayan filmmaker, posted a video on YouTube in early November titled “Ataque de Panico” (Panic Attack), and within days received a slue of offers from Hollywood studios to make a feature length film. He eventually settled with Ghost House Pictures, which is run by Sam Raimi, for a cool $30 million. Check out the giant-robot short below, which was surprisingly made for only $300!





Apparently this isn’t that new of news, but I just found out about it thanks to Mashable. The sci-fi film Alvarez is going to do is to be set in Uruguay and Argentina, and won’t be based on his YouTube short. If this sounds familiar, you may remember Neill Blomkamp getting a similar start in the industry, and the similarity hasn’t escaped the industry. Many are already predicting Alvarez to be the next Blomkamp.


What do you think of the video? Is Alvarez as good as the hype?

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  • clover41

    they did all that but they couldn’t come up with an original music track?

  • Deadpool

    FUCK YEAH!

  • Corey

    I remember reading someone (/Film., I think) and someone tried to compare this to District 9.

  • Ryan

    ^Alot of people were.
    Nothing about the short video interests me at all, looks awfully alot like SkyCaptain and the World of Tomorrow.

  • Deadpool

    Which was fucking awesome.

  • Deadpool

    I’m totally bias though because

    1. It’s a polished Spanish sci-fi, which totally rocks
    2. Sky Captain
    3. Another short movie turned epic
    4. Latino director

  • http://www.takethehandle.com handlevandal

    Great effects but saying this movie costs only $300 to make is like saying that the $30 textbook you bought to study for your final exam was the price of your college education. It was made using thousands of dollars worth of equipment and the robots were the work of dozens of expensive effects people working for free.