Web to Watch: Amazon to debut 5 pilots Thursday

Amazon rolls out five new pilots Thursday and lets you, the viewer, decide which ones get turned into series.

Three half-hour comedies, including David Gordon Green and Steven Soderbergh's Red Oaks, and two dramas, including Hand of God starring Ron Perlman and Dana Delany, will be released as part of Amazon's third pilot season. Users can watch, rate and comment on every pilot, and Amazon uses that feedback to help determine which shows get the green light.

The comedies include: The Cosmopolitans, written, directed and produced by Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, Barcelona), about a group of young Americans looking for love in Paris; Red Oaks, directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) and produced by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean's Eleven), about a boy coming of age while working at the Red Oaks Country Club in suburban New Jersey; and Really, written, directed and starring Super Troopers' Jay Chandrasekhar.

On the serious side, Amazon tapped established filmmaker Marc Foster (World War Z) to direct the thriller Hand of God about a vigilante judge (played by Ron Perlman) who suffers a mental breakdown and goes on a quest to find the rapist who tore his family apart. His wife is played by Dana Delany. And, finally, Hysteria stars Mena Suvari as a neurologist investigating a highly contagious pyscho-physiological illness that spreads by way of technology.

With five shows, the third pilot season will be the smallest yet for Amazon. The first pilot season included 14 pilots, of which five made it to series. The second season included 10, of which six made the cut. So far, Garry Trudeau's political comedy Alpha House is the most successful show to come out of the pilot process; its second season premieres later this year.

Amazon Instant Video subscribers will be able to watch and offer feedback on all five pilots starting Thursday.