I consider it an accomplishment because we opened up a career for a bunch of people who were outside the system. We made dreams happen and we're going to be doing it again and again and again.
I think it's pretty cool that this twenty-something kid from South Carolina has now produced his first film that is dropping in 800 theaters. He went from working at a gas station to sitting on a set watching his idea be brought to life by a crew of people. That's fucking awesome no matter how you slice it.
I also think it's cool that 4 people got cast into roles that would have otherwise been years away from them.
And I think it's an accomplishment that a plucky web designer was able to design a poster and have their work show up in theaters and on DVD covers.
As a bonus, it's an accomplishment that we were able to put a community around the process and do something really far outside of the system.
The end result is in the hands of many more people beyond those that worked on it through the site, so the process of getting there is much more important than the final destination.
I mean, dude, we made a movie with PHP. Who the fuck has done that?
Yeah, it's neat the way the process worked, but I guess I'm unable to see the value in coming up with a novel process to produce more slasher-film garbage. Hollywood regurgitates this crap 10 times a year, except (judging from the trailer) with more polish. They don't need crowdsourcing to add to it.
There's an entire independent film system out there. Lots of plucky people from a gas station in Whereversville end up getting their movie produced that way (or even through the major studios occasionally) every year. Not every movie is written by a John August or a Josh Friedman.
Hollywood is still much more meritocratic than most of the rest of America, and if 4 actors are years away from such a role, there's a good reason for that. The system is flawed and imperfect, and ripe for change, but it still functions at a level where if anyone is so good that they can't be ignored, they'll end up on top. By removing the process entirely, you remove what little quality control remains.
I'm just not sure that making a movie with PHP is a good idea if more of the same crap that's been destroying the industry that some of us still love for 20 years is the result. Perhaps I'm just a curmudgeon clinging to some silly notion of the movie as America's greatest art form, but this looks like something we'd be better off without.
