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Amazon wants the public to give sitcom and kids show ideas

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Have an idea for a comedy or kids show series and feeling frustrated by the traditional Hollywood process? Amazon would like to talk to you.

Back in 2010, Amazon announced it was getting into the movie production business with Amazon Studios and giving the average Joe or Jane a way to submit their ideas to the site for possible creation. Now that the winners of that competition have been selected and Amazon has a development slate of 15 potential movies, it’s turning its attention to the smaller screen, soliciting ideas for comedy or kids series that can be produced to stream on the company’s Amazon Instant Video service.

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In a statement, Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios said, ‘In the course of developing movies, we’ve heard a lot of interest from content creators who want to develop original series in the comedy and children’s genres. We are excited to bring writers, animators and directors this new opportunity to develop original series.’

So what’s in it for all those aspiring Mitch Hurwitz’s out there? If your pilot script (22 pages for a comedy, 11 pages for a kids show) and five page series proposal are selected, the writer will get a $10,000 payment for optioning the project. If it’s produced, they get another payment of $55,000 and up to 5% of Amazon’s net receipts from toy and T-shirt licensing and ‘other royalties and bonuses.’

Amazon plans to select one project a month to add to its new series development slate, which is being headed by former 20th Century Fox and Comedy Central exec Joe Lewis and Tara Sorenson, formerly of National Geographic Kids.

Among the film projects currently in development at Amazon are the horror/action/adventure movie ‘ZvG: Zombies vs. Gladiators’ and the comedy ‘I Think My Facebook Friend is Dead.’

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