Amazon sets up movie studio 'without gate guards'

It could be what Hollywood likes to call a "gamechanger": internet retail giant Amazon is setting up its own movie studio , designed to harness the easy-access, community-based environment it has pioneered. Amazon Studios has secured a first-look deal with Warner Bros, which it hopes will secure a path to high-end movie production. The website's official statement reads: "It is the goal of Amazon Studios to produce new, full-budget theatrical films based on the best projects, and it will give Warner Bros Pictures first access to the projects Amazon Studios wishes to produce in co-operation with an outside studio." Headed by Roy Price – son of veteran film and TV executive Frank Price, former head of Columbia Pictures – Amazon Studios will operate initially via a series of monthly film-making contests, with awards of $100,000 and $20,000 for the best film and script respectively. Users will be able to post their work, and other users will be able to read, view and rate as well as – in a radical departure from normal practice – being able to upload revisions and edits to the site. Amazon is banking on the sophistication of its rating metrics to ensure that popular projects get a serious shot at production. "We're the first studio without gate guards," says Price. "We can see which ones are working." At the same time, Amazon's clout as a retailer means that it has credibility as a player in the corporate media game. This isn't the first time a major internet operation has involved itself in movie-making: in 2008, the film Faintheart was released after a development collaboration between MySpace and British film outfits Film4 and Vertigo, but it had minimal impact and the experiment was not repeated. Large-scale retailers have also dabbled in the area: Tesco recently initiated production on an adaptation of Jackie Collins novel, Paris Connections, designed for sale in its stores, but it has yet to see the light of day.