Amazon Is Getting Into Moviemaking

Amazon will start making movies this year. 

The studio behind the series "Transparent" snagged a few Golden Globes earlier this month, and that momentum seems to be helping propel the studio into films. On Monday, Amazon Studios announced it will start producing and acquiring original movies for both theatrical release and distribution on Amazon Prime Instant Video. So it will start producing and distributing movies this year. 

Variety reports Ted Hope, the man behind production company Good Machine, which produced movies like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," will lead creative development at Amazon Original Movies.

Interestingly, Amazon's big original streaming content competitor, Netflix, announced its first original movie in September — a sequel to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." It comes out in August.

And CNN reports movies Amazon releases theatrically will come to Prime faster than other subscription video services — just four to eight weeks after they debut in theaters.

Writers can submit movie scripts right through Amazon Studios' website. They can also submit series ideas, and Amazon isn't getting out of original series anytime soon. 

Just last week, Amazon announced a huge get: that Woody Allen will create his first series for Amazon Studios. Bottom line: Amazon is pouring money into programming. Amazon Original Movies plans to produce an ambitious 12 films a year.

This video includes images from Getty Images and music from Pierlo / CC BY 3.0.