Crowdsourcing goes to Hollywood as Amazon makes movies

  Essentially, Amazon is crowdsourcing the creation of original content -- movies such as "Zombies versus Gladiators" and the children's TV series "Magic Monkey Billionaire." 

The retailer hopes the approach will result in more hits and fewer flops than the traditional Hollywood practice of filtering creative ideas through three-martini lunches with studio bosses and movie stars.

  Like rival movie provider Netflix Inc, Amazon is developing its own content to supplement movies and TV shows from Hollywood's back catalog. Amazon pays an estimated $1 billion a year to stream programming from others over its Prime Instant Video service. 

Since late 2010, the company's Hollywood studio, Amazon Studios, has let aspiring screenwriters and film makers upload thousands of scripts to its website.