I've noticed the equivalency in a Documentary revival lately. They're getting alot more attention and box office support. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with people being "trained" for the style through exposure to reality tv series? What do you guys think?

I think much of the acceptance and success of docs has to be attributed to Michael Moore who practically invented the mainstream accessible documentary with Roger and Me.

Eh, that was back in '89 though. In the last few years (after 2000) there has been an explosion of interest in these, and I think part of it may have to do with stylistic similarieties with reality tv. People are getting more accustomed to the "feel" of unscripted but post heavy editted footage. Non-professionals, etc?

I won't disagree that reality TV has probably helped slightly, but the box office success of docs in the past 15 years - Roger and Me ($6.7 million gross/ $0.160mil budget), Bowling for Columbine ($21 mil gross/$4mil budget), F9/11 ($119mil gross/$6mil budget), and Super Size Me ($11mil gross/$0.600mil budget) - would have to be the major motivating factor. Even lesser known docs like American Movie are very profitable ($20,000 to produce/ $1.1 million gross).

They're cheap to produce and the return on your investment is usually huge. These type of movies were doing well prior to reality TV, but with increased budgets combined with reality TV they do seem to be even more succesful and accepted as of late.

I think the two are linked.

There was a doc just recently that featured people doing sexual things like getting nude etc... called Games People Play. I think what reality tv did was open the floodgates for more pop culture docs. Not everything needs to be important now to be the basis for a documentary.