project_greenlight logoProject Greenlight, the television series produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, is getting a second lease on life. The show, which if you're not familiar, took writing and directing submissions from around the country and chronicled the making of an entire feature film. While the last season aired on Bravo in 2005, the series is going back to its roots and will be getting a brand new season on HBO with Damon and Affleck at the helm.

Here is the description from the press release:

Spanning the entire filmmaking process, PROJECT GREENLIGHT takes a revealing, uncensored look at the challenges facing a first-time director. The show begins with a digital competition, following the winner from pre-production and casting through principal photography and post-production. Equipped with a Hollywood-vetted script and surrounded by a team of industry professionals, the fledgling director must learn to cope with pressure from the studio and producers, survive on-set politics and lead a veteran cast and crew, all while trying to deliver a viable movie – on schedule and on budget.

If you haven't seen the show before, this is much of the third season, which took a slightly different turn than the first two seasons, with a project that had better financial possibilities:

Part of the reason HBO has decided to bring the series back is that they believed the show was actually a bit ahead of its time in concept. With the lower cost of technology, and sites like Vimeo and YouTube giving people a platform to show off their work, there is a much wider audience to pick from, and lots of great work being produced.

It will be interesting to see if the group decides to stick with something that may not have great commercial prospects, but could be artistically satisfying, or if they try to choose something that might do better at the box office. With digital distribution and VOD, the prospects of a smaller character-driven film reaching a mass audience are far better than they were when the show started in 2001.

No word on when it will air (unless I missed it), but it will likely be sometime late this year or early next year. We'll keep you updated on when submissions will happen for the new season.

Links:

[via The Verge]

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