Critics in Britain mostly panned the film, although the chat room crowd offered the praise you'd expect. Most of those reporting on the film seemed surprised at its failure to be innovative. They shouldn't be.

Forget the internet for a moment: if you let a mass audience decide anything, you are, by definition, playing to mainstream tastes. We should just as soon expect creative innovation from the singers who win American Idol or Pop Idol. Faintheart's greatest innovation came in PR, and its producer, Allan Niblo, has admitted as much, saying: 'The original idea was borne out of marketing.'

Specifically, he was thinking of the 2004 US comedy Knocked Up, whose promoters spent US$17 million advertising it on MySpace, and how, by partnering with the site, he could get all that PR for free.

In true Hollywood style, the front office held on to the creative reins tightly. Major roles were filled by bona fide stars, and professional scriptwriters were used. The internet vote for the director only happened once the candidates were whittled down by industry professionals to three finalists, all of whom had some filmmaking experience.

It's no film industry analogue for Wikipedia, and it's not likely Faintheart will be remembered as an important milestone in the history of internet democracy. The slight openings the production team offered the online minions simply expanded the talent pool to take advantage of the growing glut of creative talent, which pushes prices down for everything but technicians and stars. It's precisely what the Hollywood writers were striking against.

Fortunately, Faintheart isn't the only film project on MySpace these days. Writer Paulo Coelho launched a collaborative film project with MySpace to adapt his latest book, The Witch of Portobello. Having a visionary instead of financial interests at the helm may yield more interesting results.