$300 D9 like film lands $30M deal – Panic Attack (giant robots invade Montevideo, Uruguay)

Panic Attack, a short film featuring giant robots, was made for $300 by Federico Alvarez from Uruguay.  He uploaded Panic Attack! to YouTube in November, 2009.  In December of 2009, partly based on the films popularity on YouTube (1.5M+ views), Alvarez was offered a $30,000,000 contract to make the film into a major Hollywood sci-fi thriller (to be shot in Uruguay and Argentina).  He says he intends to start the film from scratch and develop a new story for the project.  Sam Raimi (Spiderman, Evil Dead) will produce through his film production company, Ghost House Pictures.

Panic Attack is about giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.  The giant robots and invading forces are very realistic and the emotion and tension of Panic Attack! is extraordinary.  Panic Attack! is 4:48 long.

“I uploaded Panic Attack to YouTube on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,” Alvarez told the BBC’s Latin American service BBC Mundo.  “It was amazing, we were all shocked.”

An aside on giant robots . . .
Admit it, you love giant robots.  Call them mecha, gundam, superbots, battlemechs, robots or giant robots – you love robots.  Period.  Everyone loves robots.  Ultraman.  MechaGodzilla.  Gigantor.  Voltron.  The other Voltron.  Tranzor Z.  Each of these robots franchises has found international acclaim and nourished the giant robots desires of millions of film fans – some of whom forget exactly how fictional these sci-fi “superdroid” robots really are.