Mr. Hellman, I'm sure that you've got something wonderful hidden in your manse. And I certainly don't mean to task your status update as an example. What I'm most fascinated about is the long term bias that I've discovered against the idea.
Time and time again, there are people who suggest that the idea is not the key, not the seed, not the most important part of the proposal. The proposal for time, for attention, for money,etc.
The argument goes something like this, while the idea is nominally important, it's the team, or the execution, or the networking, or the support that really counts. So if you can garner capital support, and 28K people anticipating your release, then you are on to something.
Let me diverge, if I may, to my own personal experiences. I went to graduate school in architecture at UCLA, and since at UCLA, the architecture school is amazingly situated across the greens from the film school, I was excited to learn about all the ideas that people had about the future of architecture, and the nexus between film and architecture. But when I got there, noone talked about ideas, everyone talked about other people. In both film and architecture, people talked about who they knew, and who the people that they knew knew, and soon we were playing 6 degrees, not to Kevin Bacon, but instead to Charles E. Cullen (Who? -- I know..right.) What was obvious, was that without the idea, everyone was competing like the courtiers of past for a chance to know someone who knows someone who knows the King, and needless to say, that competition to know someone was fierce. So idea-less we drifted aimlessly.
On the other hand, a good idea, a true idea can break through all the curtsies, gloved hand kissing and back patting, and can bloom into something unimaginable to most. The idea is the seed, the idea is the magic equation that can unlock the universe. (Like Harrison's imagined Tate-Kearney transformations)
Sure, the idea itself is not enough, but it is the essential beginning. Without it, there is nothing but whispers and promises. With it there is something undeniable.
So Mr. Hellman, while I am confident that you have such an idea, and I'm sure that you have it carefully protected so that you can nurture it, know that, as with any new idea, we look forward to you planting it amongst us so that we can watch it grow and share your joy.