I saw a couple of minutes of Dr. Horrible a few months ago, but I finally got around to watching the whole thing on Monday. Surprise! It’s great (as everyone besides me has known for months). It’s great in its execution, polish, and general sense of fun. I watched it on Hulu, which should be the model for displaying long form content online. No signup necessary, a few blissfully short but reasonable ads, and an option for HD and full screen. Nice.

What I’m most curious about though, is what this says about distribution. Joss has said the cost of this little feature is somewhere in the low six figures. Since it’s been the Top 10 of iTunes TV Season download chart for weeks now, I’m assuming he’s made at least some of it back, even at the nominal price point of $5. He’s also just released the soundtrack on iTunes as well (an obvious move, considering how catchy the score is). Now, considering how tight-lipped Apple is about sales figures, I don’t know where the numbers actually fall in terms of revenue for the project. But, I’m imagining he’s pulled in at least $100k on this at this point. That may mean he’s very far away from even breaking even on it, but this wasn’t done to make money.

The genesis of this was, I assume, “fun project to do during the writer’s strike.” And it is fun. Really fun. But you’re telling me this isn’t going to inspire some film kids to do the same thing and see if they can make it work for less money? Because I guarantee there’s at least four groups trying to do the same thing right now. They might totally suck. But they might be pretty fun. And nobody can tell them what to do or not do with their video, because they’re not beholden to anyone.

Now, obviously Joss Whedon has a long history of working in TV and film and is going to know how to make a good video without spending too much or wasting money. Also he has the capital to finance a little project like this. But the fact that he just went for it, and showed that people will always respond to quality work, is a good thing. I’d buy a DVD of Dr. Horrible for the right price. So what’s the next mini-project people would buy? Could come from anywhere.