Joss Whedon's Wacky Web Experiment

Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer likely will flock to Whedon's new Dr. Horrible online project. His business plan may be just as interesting

by Liz Gannes

Sometimes, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. In Joss Whedon's case, what he felt he had to do was make an online musical about a super villain who keeps getting foiled by a hero as he pines after the girl from the laundromat. So he did, funding Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in "the low six figures" out of his own pocket.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, knows how to attract passionate fans like no other. So Dr. Horrible is almost guaranteed to be a hit, especially by Internet standards. (And we loved it, too—see our review.) But in deciding to release his musical extravaganza online, he got as creative with the business plan as he did with the concept.

The first of three installments of the 42-minute musical was released (with some technical difficulty, due to overwhelming demand and unforeseen geographic limitations) on the evening of July 15. The second one will go live July 17 and the third on July 19. If you want to stream the ad-supported episodes for free, you must do so before July 20, when they will be taken down. If you want to buy them on iTunes ($1.99 per section or $3.99 for the series), you can hold onto them. After that, the plan is to release a DVD version, either independently or with a studio, that includes an all-new musical by the cast and crew that's also 42 minutes long, to be called Commentary!

"We wanted to make an event out of it, like an old TV event, when you have to be in the same place at the same time," said Whedon, admitting that part of the motivation was revving the hype engines.

Playing the Scarcity Card

Though some deep thinkers may argue that limiting access to your intellectual property will only dampen demand for it, many producers feel that introducing scarcity is one of their only bargaining chips left on the Web. So they will cut deals to show new episodes for 24 hours on MySpace before posting them to their own sites, for example, as Marshall Herskovitz did with quarterlife.

But it's hard to know where fan bases will grow organically online, and as Herskovitz learned (this was before quarterlife's failed debut on television), it's mighty difficult to emerge from the heap—even if you are famous for making My So-Called Life—without a good bit of promotion.