G.I. Joe No Go Outside US (except…)

It seems like big media companies waste endless time and energy doing everything they can to control and, in effect, limit who can watch, listen to and/or interact with their content.

While these efforts will stop some casual users from getting the content (way to lose a fan, guys) those who really want it will find away around the controls put in place.  Sometimes this can involve P2P filesharing, but more often than not, it’s just a simple matter of finding a site that has the content streaming.

Great case in point:

Warren Ellis has written a new series of GI Joe cartoons, reimagining the infra-dumb 80s toy-sales vehicle as a serious war comic. Adult Swim has the original episodes, but they’re blocked outside of the US, so if you’re in the UK like me, you can watch ‘em on YouTube.

Why don’t these media companies simply embrace the fact that there is now a potentially mammoth global audience hungry for their content and provide it directly to them instead of letting middlemen step in and do the job.

G.I. Joe and Adult Swim in Web-to-TV Experiment

Now seems like as good a time as any to “re-invent” G.I. Joe for a new, darker generation and the folks at Cartoon Networks AdultSwim are attempting just that with a series called G.I. Joe Resolute.

However, instead of simply putting the new cartoon right into the TV line-up, they are trying something a little bit different:

The show, which was first announced on Ellis’s blog last summer, is a 60-minute story that will be broken up into 11 episodes. The first ten episodes will run for around five minutes each and the finale will run for ten minutes.

Only the first ten episodes will air on AdultSwim.com. At midnight on April 25, the finale will air as part of a special viewing of the show in its entirety on Cartoon Network.

This will be one to track in terms of how much buzz and traffic can be created and how many people will follow the series from the web to TV.  Unlike pervious attempts to combine these platforms, like streaming a premiere episode or transplanting a series, this feels like a more organic approach and I believe it will benefit all involved.

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• G.I. Joe Resolute Clips Now Online (themovieblog.com)
• Warren Ellis’ Animated ‘G.I. Joe: Resolute’ Debuts With A Bang… Lots Of Them! (splashpage.mtv.com)