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Summary
Here's the story, an unknown director shoots a 5 minute short film that cost 300 dollars (USD) to make, puts it on YouTube and ends up signing a reported 30 million picture deal. While this may sound like the stuff of an urban or rather Hollywood legend, the fact is, it just happened to Federico Alvarez. The 31-year-old producer from Uruguay was an absolute unknown when he uploaded his short film Panic Attack to the internet just 5 weeks ago. A few days later he was an internet sensation and one of the hottest new filmmaking talents in Hollywood. I posted on a Thursday and by Monday my mailbox was full with all e-mails from Hollywood, explained Alvarez.It was like, what? It was crazy. So, over the next week I started to get a lot of email from here like, 'Oh your short is great, we want to meet with you.' So, I was like ok let me go over there. Once in Hollywood, Alvarez' services were heavily courted by studios and A-list powerplayers.The now former advertising executive, who previously made a living shooting commercials in his home country, reportedly inked a 30-million dollar deal with director Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures to direct an original film based somewhat on his short film.Raimi, whose best known for his work on Spiderman and Evil Dead films, will oversee the project. Also in the beginning people here had told me that that doesn't mean anything. It could be just blah, blah blah, and that people wanted to meet you and then nothing happens. We saw it happen so many times, said Alvarez. The great thing is that something happened and that is why everyone is amazed. In just three days in the city like Hollywood to have all this stories of people sleeping in their cars forever to try and get a gig. It was great to have three days in the city and to get a movie deal. Panic Attack is just under 5 minutes long and depicts an alien invasion with giant robots and certainly is a film that gets your attention. Alvarez told Reuters that his upcoming film will also involve an alien invasion, but will differ from the original short.
