Dr. Horrible trailer available online

Although there is still isn’t an official “release date” for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the three episode webseries that Joss Whedon co-wrote with his brothers, a trailer for the project is now available on various Internet sites, including fansite doctorhorrible.net. The one minute, three second teaser begins with an eerie-sounding narration by Whedon—“For every day, there is a night. For every world, there is an underworld. And for every hero, there’s… this guy”—before launching into a sequence of clips featuring Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible), Nathan Fillion (Captain Hammer) and Felicia Day (Penny). Word on when the approximately 30-minute musical about “a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to” will be online should be coming shortly, as the actors and writers are already scheduled to appear at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con on July 25th.

While other Hollywood writers will be releasing their own web projects on July 4th via StrikeTV.com, it is Whedon’s webseries that may have the biggest impact on the budding medium. First, the television creator already has a significant online fanbase because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, and second, he seems intent on fully exploring the web as a medium that offers both creative freedom and monetary gain. “At first I was just really working the problem because the strike was a very serious issue and one that I don’t feel we resolved adequately,” Whedon told the Los Angeles Times last month. “I reached out to the people in Silicon Valley, like everyone else, and said, if you will finance something, I will put it together. I will shoot it tomorrow. I will make something so low-budget that will look so good. That deal still isn’t made. It took so long. But I wanted to get out there and create jobs and tell stories, and really explaining to people that there really is another way.” He then decided to shorten his expectations and went with Dr. Horrible as a test-project instead. After its initial online release, plans for the webseries include availability on iTunes and a DVD (with lots of extras).

Although exactly what impact Whedon and Dr. Horrible will have on the webseries genre is yet to be known, it has already changed one person’s opinion on the medium. “I saw a rough cut of this thing and it’s frickin’ great,” Fillion told TruckerMovie.net. “It’s changed my opinion as to how things are going to work in the future as far as taking the producers out of the equation and the Internet is now your distribution. I think everything’s going to change and I think this is certainly my first experience in the direction things are going.” Hopefully millions of viewers will soon feel the same way.

—Anthony Letizia (June 26, 2008)

 

ALTERNA-TV.COM ARTICLES OF INTEREST:

Television Writers Take Their Talents to the World Wide Web Article about the newly launched StrikeTV, Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible musical webseries, as well as other recent Internet endeavors by television writers (July 7, 2008).

Firefly/Serenity Fans Raise Money for Charity Fans of Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe continue to make their presence known through the annual ‘Can’t Stop the Serenity’ fundraiser for Equality Now (June 23, 2008).

Dr. Horrible Conjures Up Internet Buzz Article exploring the latest project by Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon, and the Internet buzz surrounding the upcoming Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog webseries (April 14, 2008).

Television Fans Unite In Support of Striking Writers Article exploring fan campaigns in support of the Writer’s Guild of America and what impact, if any, they may have on the current labor dispute (November 26, 2007).

The Legacy of Joss Whedon Article on the tenth anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the man who created it (Flak Magazine: March 8, 2007).

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ALTERNA-TV.COM BLOG ENTRIES OF INTEREST:

StrikeTV to launch on July 4th The online network of original video content first proposed during the strike by the Writers Guild of America is set to launch on Independence Day. (June 19, 2008).

Sony's new web-to-DVD business model Sony plans on launching new online webseries next year and then releasing them as DVD movies (June 17, 2008).

Whedon's Dollhouse begins production After detours into film and comics, Joss Whedon returns to television with FOX’s Dollhouse (April 28, 2008).

NBC acquires two more webseries Despite the failure of quarterlife, NBC Universal partners with Electric Farm Entertainment for new online endeavors (April 17, 2008).