If that was a complete listing: Then destroying them would be a pretty straightforward matter, because startups do distribution and marketing like the best.
The problem as I see it: I think you missed a function. Hollywood is a specialized VC community. Their investments are movies.
No amount of Y-combinatoring is going to supplant the money machine, without building a brand new money machine.
That's true, but we dont need a VC community that specializes in handing out tens of millions when, thanks to technology, movies can be made for tens of thousands.
There are financial very successful (in terms of $100k's/a rather than millions of dollars) movie producers, actors, writers and directors who specifically aim for sub-segments of the market and fulfill niche demand. Christian and African-American movies being two successful segments of the market for low-budget, high-return movies.
Sorry, no. The risk is higher, but the reward, should it pay off, is much greater and there is a much more attractive risk:reward. An indie film can indeed be profitable, but the probability of being very profitable is small.
This is the same for games, music, TV, books. As a publisher where do you concentrate your money? Where it's likely to make the most money, of course.
I was laughing until I realized you were serious. Of course it's possible to make a movie for a few thousand dollars. But most movies at that budget aren't worth watching. Quality (especially the talent) is expensive, and that is fact in every field.
This system works well for the companies and the top rung artists. Ripe for "disruption".
You mean like sports stars?
The command higher fees because having their name attached to a project reduces the amount of marketing expenditure of a project and increases the projects chances of success.
Aside from fees for high-paid actors and directors though there are still a LOT of people needed to produce a quality film: screenwriters, cinematographers etc.
Sports is probably the closest thing we have to a true meritocracy. If you're an incredibly talented baseball player you'll have statistics to back it up.
Because of this I'd wager that almost all the top tier baseball players are currently engaged by major league teams.
However, acting is more subjective. It's much harder to objectively demonstrate that you are a top tier actor, so there are likely many top tier actors available for hire who aren't making millions.
With the right setting (no fancy costumes, no fancy sets, no tough-to-reach locations), the right setup (digital HD camera and ~$2000 computer to edit and render SFX if any), and unknown actors you can make a film that would be indistinguishable from Hollywood quality (without any famous faces however) for low tens of thousands of dollars.
Also, there is plenty of great talent that hasn't "made it" in Hollywood, and that talent is probably artificially cheap.
>Quality (especially the talent) is expensive, and that is fact in every field.
There are plenty of quality actors that are paid much less than millions of dollars per movie.
In addition, price is a function of what consumers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to charge. If piracy drives down what consumers are willing to pay (and thus what actors can charge), what do you want to bet actors will still act (for much lower wages).