I think Marc's head is certainly in the right place, but in all fairness, what you can do on a Mac and a HD cam and writing/shooting LOST and Heroes ain't the same thing whatsoever.
Yeah, but you don't have to write Hero's or Lost to get an audience of a couple million any more.
I saw this guys short animation in 2000 and it blew me away at the time. He got 1 million views in 6 months on iFilm.com
Now he's finishing a full 85 minute feature. 1 animator + 3 to 4 years = animated feature film. The trailer looks pretty impressive for a one man project.
I'm sure he'll do just fine if he can do a little merchandising. If he can sell 50,000 t-shirts via Cafe Press, he's just made $250,000. If he can sell 20,000 DVD's at a $4 per DVD profit, he's made $800,000.
He doesn't have to make a $100 million at the box office or $6 million per episode in advertising/licensing because his costs are orders of magnitude lower than Hollywood's. He's probably put in $100,000 - 200,000 of his own in living expenses, and if he's smart, he'll make his money back in a heartbeat.
