From YouTube to Hollywood!

Fede Alvarez of Uruguay uploaded his short film to YouTube in November of last year (just sounds so fun to say that even though it was barely two months ago) has been offered a $30m contract to make a Hollywood film.

His project caught the eye of Hollywood blockbuster director Sam Raimi, who will sponsor Alvarez's upcoming foray into Hollywood film making. (If you don't know who he is and you consider yourself a movie buff you should)

"Ataque de Panico!" (Panic Attack!) is a virtually story-less action sequence with nothing more for a plot than gaint robots emerge from the fog and destroy Montevideo. There are no real characters to speak of, no protagonist. Short of the robots and the masses of screaming citizenry it is rather void.

With a running time just under 5 minutes and a budget of a mere $300 it is an impressive feat. The visuals are interesting to watch and don't detract from the viewing experience. The core idea of the project holds virtually no originality however. The robot designs also lack originality but are executed well enough for the scope of the endeavor. While his contract is apparently to direct a feature, this film is more of an exercise in the skills of a cinematographer or visual fx artist/supervisor than those of a director.

So far it has generated more than 1.5 million views on YouTube.

"I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios," he told the BBC's Latin American service BBC Mundo.

"It was amazing, we were all shocked."

Alvarez is to create a science fiction film to be shot in Uruguay or Argentina. He intends to start from scratch to create said project.

"If some director from some country can achieve this just uploading a video to YouTube, it obviously means that anyone could do it," he added.

After hearing about this all I can say is... I need to get creating... something... big... but cheap. (sounding harder all the time) But apparently Hollywood is just handing out money and "anyone can do it."