Here are some strange bedfellows: Paramount and BitTorrent. That's right, the pirate-fighting studio just teamed up with producers who are hell-bent on using the pirates' favorite peer-to-peer sharing software tool to release The Tunnel on May 19. At the same time, Paramount will release a DVD version of the horror film.

The DVD will contain content that's supposedly compelling enough to lure those who downloaded the movie into buying the hard copy. The movie won't be in theaters — it's another one of those straight-to-video titles. But this is a first: The BitTorrent version, while full-length, serves as a tease. So if you buy the DVD, you'll get alternate endings, along with extra material that won't be available on the BitTorrent feed.

Another element of the unconventional monetization scheme is the sale of individual frames from the movie to fans and collectors for $1 apiece. The frames are offered as individual frames, or in groups of 1 second (25 frames), 2 seconds (50 frames) or 1 minute's worth of the film or more. So far, the film's producers have sold 30,000 frames, with more than 100,000 still available.

Are the film's producers giving up the fight against movie piracy by taking a stance of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"? The movie's producer/editor Enzo Tedeschi told Torrentfreak: "From day one we’ve maintained that The Tunnel is not supporting or condoning piracy, but instead trying to incorporate a legitimate use of peer-to-peer in our distribution strategy internationally."

The Tunnel's official website offers more insight:

"We believe that if we stop fighting the peer to peer networks, they could become the biggest revolution we have ever seen in the way we share entertainment and information. After spending years being frustrated by what we saw as the movie industry’s short-sighted and conventional outlook towards the online community, we decided it was time to try something different — The 135K Project was born. We figured that movie posters and collectable frames from movies are being sold every day, so what if we could raise the money to make “The Tunnel” by selling every individual frame of it? We would be able to make a movie unencumbered by a studio’s need for box office. We could do what we got into the industry to do in the first place. Tell stories we like and get them out there so people could enjoy them. What’s the key to doing that? You. If you like the look of “The Tunnel” or the idea behind The 135K Project — buy a frame or two, blog about it, follow us on twitter, seed and embed the finished film when it’s released. Whatever you can do. It will all help and show the world there might just be another way. Who knows where that might lead?"

If nothing else, this is certainly a creative distribution plan. I'm just wondering this: Why do the film's producers and backers think the DVD's content won't also be immediately placed on BitTorrent? Perhaps like locks, this scheme is designed to keep the honest people out.

So, commenters, will this work? Is this a new way to distribute films, or a fool's errand?

Take a look at the film's teaser:









