I was looking through the release schedule for 2011 and saw a film "Skank Robbers". I wondered if someone was releasing a porn or something. Nope, as The Playlist has pointed out, "Skank" is a comedy starring drag-superstar Martin Lawrence and Jamie Foxx. Apparently, the idea started as a fake trailer during the BET Awards and someone decided, "Why not? They're doing it with Machete." So now we're going to see "Big Momma's Heist."

Now, this is nothing new. The 90's had a run of these with "Sling Blade", "Boogie Nights", "Office Space" and "Bottle Rocket" all starting out as shorts. The difference, however, is that now it's not indie directors or new faces trying to break through; it's established stars/directors using this as a way to sell their next project. The recent "fan trailer" for Mortal Kombat was a fairly well-connected project helmed by the director of the recent "Fame" remake.

What this does is make things harder to the up-and-coming talents in Hollywood. Pitching a spec script isn't enough anymore; the odds of selling one to a major studio seems slim-to-none nowadays. However, just coming up with a phony trailer or short doesn't seem to be any more of a help since now more established people are falling back to that and the web is inundated with these shorts. The rise of internet portals like 60 Frames and Vuguru turned out to be much ado about nothing because they, like the studios they were supposed to be different from, were only looking for submissions from established writers/directors.

This is the main problem with Hollywood. Even when supposedly digging for new projects, they go back to the same well. This isn't to say that "Skank Robbers" won't be funny but when you're struggling to make money and finding fresh material, I'm just not sure that going with spin-offs of characters from films like "Get Him to the Greek" and "Tropic Thunder" or financing films based on joke trailers is the way to go. Sadly, nobody seems to be learning as even TV is making more and more remakes of shows (most of which fail.) I feel like we're on the verge of another indie movement like Miramax in the 90's but, unfortunately, I think the odds are good that it will start outside of Hollywood and possibly outside of the US entirely.