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India's Bollywood Opts for Low-Cost Digital Cinema
Makarand writes "While Hollywood is yet to figure out who will pay for the costly
$100,000 digital projectors required for the digital roll-out of
films, the Mumbai (India) based film Industry (called Bollywood)
is settling for cheaper projectors of a bit lesser quality
available at one-third the price, to proceed with their digital roll-out.
Industry officials call this cheaper version of the digital cinema the 'E-Cinema',
in contrast to the 'D-Cinema' which Hollywood is waiting for. Over
1000 films are made each year in India and just 1 film in 12 makes a
profit. Transporting conventional celluloid prints to remote towns
gives video pirates plenty of time to copy and make prints. Digital
cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase
its profits."
Only 1 film in 12 makes a profit? Perhaps the films are not intended to make a profit, but instead are money laundering?
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
How about, "Bend it like Beckham" for starters?
Digital cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase its profits.
Last time I checked it was 100x easier to pirate a digital format by simply copying it as oppose to the usual digital-camera-at-screen method or even more difficult and costly telecine process.
Digital cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase its profits.
And if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you. I'll even give you 10% off.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
There have been several, and several have been nominated for international awards. Besides, there is a significant percentage of Indian readers of Slashdot.
*shrug*
I find it really hard to believe that the move to digital cinema will facilitate less piracy.
"Alcohol, cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" -Homer Simpson
Maybe they're big, in, um, India???
that this will cut down on piracy, but it will certainly be interesting to watch what happens. This is one area where DRM would work very well. There are others, of course, but this one application is a good place for DRM and encryption etc.
Besides, all those call center reps need a night out once in a while
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I've been hearing about Linux for years. Anyone ever USED Linux for work and play? So who the fuck cares, then?
It's only 10x easier to pirate the digital media, but it is 100x easier to seed the torrent =)
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -Heinlein
All the Indians care...u fucktard.....Get a life....
Its movie about Indian but not a bollywood movie. The movie was made in UK
The reason the digital system will reduce piracy is, in India movies are usually copied while moving the film tape (reel) from one place to another.. For example a movie released in a particular city might just have one reel and it has to be shared between cinemas and are exchanged on a show to show basis...
There are literally billions of people who have heard of a Bollywood movie. And they don't give a fuck whether you give a fuck or not.
You mean, we're starting to outsource slashdot readers too now?
"Over 1000 films are made each year in India and just 1 film in 12 makes a profit. Transporting conventional celluloid prints to remote towns gives video pirates plenty of time to copy and make prints. Digital cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase its profits.""
"But, but, it doesn't hurt anyone"
"It's free advertising"
"I never would have spent the money on it anyway"
Yeah, and one of the actresses is well known from E.R.
BUT I found a press release from RealImage which explains that the distribution method is by satellite.
So I'm assuming they'll use an encrypted satellite feed to send the movies to theaters.
Reading some of their other press releases gives some good info: The distro method is web based, so theaters can pick whatever they want from a server.The other tidbit i picked up is that "The films in the MPEG 2 format will take 20 hours to download depending on the connectivity"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Awesome. I loved it.
:)
And it's about cricket.
Maybe they're big, in, um, India???
People outside of India should care, why? They're certainly not big outside of India, and I've heard and even seen a little of their films, compared with the shit hollywood produces, I'd rather hollywood. I'm sure it's an aquired taste (which is helped by people outside of India who watch it feeling like they're superior to people who don't), but I doubt it's about to take the world by storm.
Maybe the Indian "movie" community got a good deal on some refurb Infocus X1a's that was on besnbargains.net or woot.com?
Ah....Bollywood. Look for the next Ashiarya Rai (or whatever her name is) film to be coming to a xvid/mp4 avi file playing off of a Thinkpad T42 that doubles as a laptop for an outsourced IBM employee. Gotta love that dual monitor support!!!!!
Note: One of you will complain about lack of DVI on the T42. Get the docking station, slacker
high budget microphones to hear their voices while singing every 2 minutes.
Rapsani: You killed my brother, how dare you then sleep with my sister!
Hajil: No, it was him Gandapana! Look, he's running away. Let's Sing!
Then you see 30 indians break into a dance while the evil killer is running away WHILE singing AND dancing.
I bet the stories in Bollywood movies are much more interesting than the stories of today's Hollywood movies, regardless of how much they sing and/or dance.
Bollywood is big throughout Asia and other parts of the world. Yes, Hollywood is bigger, and at this time, more people see their movies. But, just as all the recent outsourcing should have shown you, things change. Hollywood, is trying to spend top dollars on equipment, acting, directing, etc. Most hollywood movies pay their top actor/actress more than what a bollywood movie costs. So what does that mean? For now, nothing.
But, in about another 3-5 years, bollywood will re-align some of their movies and will start targeting the hollywood crowd. In fact, Hollywood is guarenteeing that, by all their formulic approachs, and recently, their DRMs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Stop bashing India. Be mature, get a life.
I have seen Bollywood films such as Mashooka, Saathiya, and Yeh Dil, amongst others. While I'm not a fan of American cinema, I think I am even less of a fan of Indian cinema. I found their films less than entertaining. The plots often lacked originality, and the filmmanship was subpar. They're often billed as being professional-quality, but the editing, audio and the general direction was often quite bad.
They are lacking overall, especially when compared to the masterpieces that regularly come from mainland Europe. Not that I'm suggesting every European movie is better. But if you pick one at random, the European one will most likely be far better done, the quality of the acting will be much greater, and it will be far more coherent.
If there's one good thing about the Bollywood films, especially compared to Hollywood ones, is that they're far less commercialized. That is, they're not plastered with ads for Coke, for instance.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Do you have any proof to back up your accusations of money laundering, or are you just making unsubstantiated claims, Russ?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Indeed, they often do use dance and song. Take a look at many 1950s movies from Hollywood. You basically have the same thing going on there, especially in non-musicals.
That could be because many of the top Bollywood performers are also singers. They become famous because of their music, and then get top billing in many of the Bollywood movies. It only makes sense for them to sing, as that is their first talent, before acting.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I don't think so. The story isn't what sells a movie. It's the star(s). It's been that way for a very long time.
When was the last (or first) time you've seen a Bollywood star with massive international appeal without the help of Hollywood? Marketing is what Hollywood does best. Bollywood's got a ways to go on that.
The anti-piracy argument is pretty weak. It is really the economics that makes sense. From the article "While it takes around 70,000 rupees to make a celluloid print, RealImage rents out digital copies to cinema owners at less than 400 rupees." So it costs a lot less for the movie theaters, so it makes the industry profitable by cutting the distribution costs. It doesn't change the production costs (at least not from that article).
Great news. Perfect digital copies, and the entry price of 33K keeps away pesky street pirate wantabees. The big 'Players' will be cheering this, and even the trusted couriers who can demand a bigger cut between suudio and far flung cinemas.
There is absolutely no way that digital cinemas would curb piracy!
People outside of India should care, why?
Because they're adopting a different technology strategy than companies in the US are. In particular, they're opting for better than we have now (if not better than we hope to have), and sooner to market, and cheaper. This is something that should make people
It's not as if these guys couldn't be selling us this technology in the near future, while our "better" technology is still trying to get off the dime.
I'm sure it's an aquired taste
Well, it's more of a cultural difference, the way that Hong Kong audiences love an incredily corny tear jerker. You probably don't realize how ridiculous the movies your countrymen like until you live someplace else. I kid an Indian friend of mine whenever he's going to piss his wife off by working late that she's going to make him climb to the top of a grassy knoll and dance around a tree. He hasn't thought of it yet, but I suppose he could tell me to check for a bomb strapped to the bottom of my car when I'm in the same situation.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Do the terms E-Cinema and D-Cinema have anything to do with the fact that 99% of films that are coming out these days are B movies?
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Low-cost digital cinemas should theoretically slash distribution costs, but I suspect the cost savings will be a negligible percentage of the total cost to make, publicize and distribute the film. What the shift WILL do is slash the cost of distributing the 11 out of 12 films that are money losers in a manner that will transform the industry. Currently, movieplexes *have* to play stinker films for a short while, because the print is couriered to them and there aren't extra prints of the popular films to replace them. The distributor manufactures hundreds of prints of marginal films, and wants to see at least some return on their investment. So the film lingers for a few weeks in the cinema. With digital distribution, money losers can be quickly deleted from distribution at not cost -- it's not like there are hundreds of film prints that suddenly become worthless.
Kal ho na ho
Bollywood is used to identify the 100 plus Hindi cinema coming from Mumbai (Bombay). India has major film producing centers in Chennai for Tamil films (Madras), Hyderabad for Telugu films, Bangalore for Kannada Films, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi (Cochin)for Malayalam Films, Kolkatha (Calcutta) for Bengali films, Guwahati for Assamese films etc., where the other 900 plus films are made every year.
What you see in theaters in UK/USA/New Zealand/Australia/other countries are Hindi films catering to the Non-Resident-Indian audience. And most cities will have one or two theaters that cater to Tamil films, Bengali films, Malayalam films, Kannada films and Telugu films.
The examples you gave were of poorly made films. To understand Indian cinema, try the films of Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan, Shaji N Karun, Shyam Benegal, Ketan Mehta, Girish Kasaravalli etc. You will not be disappointed.
Tat Tvam Asi
Why do they call it 'bollywood'?
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
RTFA, you dumbass.
the majority of indian film production takes place in bombay, i believe.
hence, bollywood.
Many agree with you about the star system. The star system is waning though; the list of stars is short and has been static in the US for a while.
A lot of market research shows that younger generations are not really star-centric. Celebrity is disposable, so no long term relationships are made with actors/directors, etc.
So to address your statement, the story is actually far more likely to sell a story in the US film market. More accurately, HIGH CONCEPT. This is what hollywood terms a film that can be summarized succinctly, usually in the title. For example: Titanic... or The Perfect Storm, Anaconda, et al. High concept films focus on the simple catchy idea that is easily conveyed. This reduces costs because a name cast is not necessary; the film sells itself. The title is a marketing phrase. The way hollywood hedges bets is that they tie a name cast to a high concept film and assume that all bases are covered. Tom Cruise in American Samurai, or Tom Hanks in Castaway. These are sure moneymakers and everyone wants to bankroll those.
The star system is more effective for the older crowd. 45-64s make up about 25% of the moviegoing pop in the US, the second biggest chunk behind the 12-24s. Stars matter to them; they establish relationships with their artists and nurture those relationships.
That's why your summer blockbuster is packed with your rapper/pop star du jour and suitably MTVed dialogue. Serious films with stars are more likely distributed during the rest of the year on non-holiday weekends but most likely during Oscar season, typically considered to be the fall and winter.
Re: Bollywood. Bollywood movies won't cross over here for two reasons. Americans on a whole tend to be very culturally arrogant. If Bollywood films don't already fit the existing view Americans have of Indians, they will not be embraced. Americans watch films to affirm themselves, for the most part... and this attitude transcends racial, gender, and age lines. Americans for the most part, feel themselves superior.
Also, Bollywood movies are bound by cultural restraints that will make them less than viable here.
The other side of that, is that a Bollywood star who tries to cross over here risks alienating his bollywood audience, to the point where he/she might not be viable over there any more.
So much of the world has become acclimated to consuming our product, it is more likely that they'll come towards the US style of filmmaking as opposed to the other way around.
un burrito me trampeó.
So the movie industry says that digital cinema will save them money and of course they'll say it will have increased clarity, sound etc... and they'll probably even say it will be cheaper to make movies...
In the end they'll raise ticket prices to "recover the cost of the digital cinema investment" and ticket prices will go up...
It's like how there are 'conveinence fees' for paying bills online, it saves the company $$$ by having me pay for something online (1 less person opening mail), but they twist it around to make me pay >${cost_of_stamp}.
Look at Fandango... i have to pay service charges so I don't have to stand in line... they love the fact that I don't have to stand in line... but i'm not paying an extra $3 to not stand in line...
Bollywood has discovered a very effective method of preventing illegal copying of their films.
They make mostly Hindi musicals.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Yep. And American Pie is at the pinancle of class movie making, as were its two sequels.
Jackie Chan was once asked if he regretted never being a huge star (rather than just a Cult Hero) in the US. He basically said that with One Billion People in China, why did he need the English speaking world?
Same with Spanish language Movies. Pedro Almodovar is hardly known by mainstream english speaking viewers, but is huge in Spain and throughout Latin America.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
I aint ingorant! Send 'em all back to their Rersevations with their TeePees, their Squaws and their Bollywood movies!
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Like spelling and grammar!
Mullywood?
or Mummywood?
un burrito me trampeó.
Using that logic, CGI movies will never sell.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
This sad fact is a national tragedy for India. Clearly, Intellectual Property laws need to be substantially strengthened, both in India and worldwide, so that every film or other work, no matter where it was made, receives every penny of the profits that their creators had hoped for.
I personally hope that they track down the individuals that are responsible for this failure of 11 out of 12 movies and they throw the book at them. As far as I'm concerned, they can rot in jail indefinitely for destroying over 91% of the Indian cinema industry.
Most of the movies in India are made in three languages - Hindi (Bollywood), Telugu (Tollywood) and Tamil (Kollywood). Majority in the above three languages are the so called 'masala' , commercial movies, with song, dance, fights n stuff. But there are occasionally some meaningful movies, which make it to international film festivals. The languages which win more awards are usually Bengali and Malayalam. Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal are some good directors. In Telugu, I would recommend K.Viswanath's musical, award-winning classics - Sagara Sangamam, Shankarabharanam, Swathi Muthyam etc.
The way I've read the article, I don't think that DRM has anything to do with their reasoning as to why this will cut down on piracy. For all we know from the article, they might not even be incorporating DRM in their digital copies.
The main problem seems to be that it simply takes so long to get celluloid copies rolled out to everywhere at the same time, and a large part of this is because the expense makes it difficult for smaller theatres to get movies quickly. People then buy from the pirates because the genuine copies aren't available.
It's similar to what happens in developed countries outside the US when the industry tries to hold up a movie or TV show's international release for anything from months to years until whatever overseas seasons they think will be most profitable. People ignore the industry and simply pirate copies from the US. (Hence the regionised DVD players, which have been an attempt by the MPAA to make it difficult or illegal for people to import and export movies between countries independently from the industry.)
The main difference seems to be that Bollywood isn't withholding movies intentionally --- it simply can't get them around everywhere quickly enough. Lower cost digital systems mean that Bollywood distributors can distribute more widely and more quickly to the much smaller population centres, meaning that people will have less incentive to pirate the movies.
There are other Bollywoods I didn't know about?
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
So Indian movie production companies are an insider industry controlled by several families. Many crappy movies are produced, but the profits from just a few hits sustain those companies. And many of the so-called new talents are actually related to higher powers in the movie industry.
How is this different from Hollywoood?
> They're certainly not big outside of India, and I've heard and even seen a little of their films
I can't stand 'em myself (and get grief from family who are all in Bollywood's thrall) but 'not big outside India' is not true. Bollywood films are incredibly popular in Pakistan/Afghanistan, the Middle East and Egypt. I've even come (non-Indian diaspora) Bollywood fans from Nigeria (although their local film biz is getting bigger and more popular these days) and Uganda, as well East Europe and Russia.
To say that Bollywood would probably not appeal to Western tastes is probably a fair statement, though. It's not the music or that many are musicals, it's that they are *way* too melodramatic (but Indians like it that way) and basically have plotholes you could drive trucks through. That and the fact that 99% of all their stories follow variations around the same basic plotline about boy-meets-girl / $problem / marry-and-live-happily-ever-after.
Go somewhere random
Everybody is missing the point here. The point is not that they are fighting piracy, but changing the way feature films have always been made and shown. If anybody has even taken a film history class, you would realize the effect film has on the audience, compared to ordinary digital. If you are going for a certain effect, you will use film. Film is far superior to watch than digital.
The real issue here is the industry is cutting costs, while making us think it is better. We will all remember the days when we used to use real 35mm prints and how much better it was. A film projector projects nothing more then it projects a picture. Most of the time, black is on the screen rather than a picture. Digital projectors don't do this.
Film is expensive, it is hard to work with, and it becomes costly to edit and reproduce and distribute. But we don't care about that. We should be concerned with the inferior replacement of film by digital. That's the difference between going to a theater and popping in a DVD at home. The film experience.
Precisely. Another indication is that you can probably count the number of French or Spanish films that became "hits" in the US on the fingers of your left foot. For some reason, it's probably easier to get the average American into the dentist's office for a double root canal than it is to get them to see a foreign film. Especially (shudder) an "art" film with a n actual plot and dialog.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
The U.S. isn't the whole world. Bollywood movies regularly crack the top ten lists in the UK, are extremely popular in the Arab world, and have many devoted fans in Russia. In a recent UK poll, Amitabh Bachchan showed up as THE top movie star. Bollywood is developing much more of a following in the US as well. Even if you don't have an Indian cinema or an Indian grocery-spice-video shop in your area, you can sample the films through Netflix. After a while ... they kinda grow on you.
It's strange that noone has really talked about Low Bugdget Independent Film Makers in bolloywood/elsewhere who see India/Indian Diaspora as a market. They would benefit immensely by this, as they work on shoe-string budget and are always in need of alternatives to cut down on costs.
Last heard, a low budget Indie movie "Hyderabad Blues" about an Indian returning from states went on to become a surprise hit and made more money than other movies. This is what makes Low-Cost Digital Cinema exciting. Low cost digital cinema lowers the barriers and lets your reach more people per dollar. This is what the article should be about.
Not the 20 mafia-funded, casting couch expert producers (everyone other than perhaps the police knows bollywood is mostly a conduit to route underworld money) who anyway have to route black money, but hundreds of Indie film makers who have a new story to tell and spend their own dollar on it.
Me ? I don't watch big budget bollywood movies. I hate to spend my dollar to fund poppy growing Afghanistanian warlords.
Actually, the greater danger with digital piracy is the DVD market. It is well reported that US film studios are making more and more of their money from the DVD release of their films today. If the pirate can access the digital file, he can quickly create a DVD and flood the market before the studio can release their own version. With that said, I would also expect to see the dates between theatrical release and DVD release coming closer and closer together. Theatrical releases, DVDs, Video-on-Demand are all facets of the same business model. Studios are realizing that they can make more money from minor hits/flops with the DTD (Direct-to-DVD) and VOD models with lower risk, while promoting the 'theater experience' for the blockbusters. Especially now with digital distribution, the studios will not have to invest as much in the theatrical release, meaning they do not need to restrict customers access to the movie on other medium for as long.
And how many of the ignorant Yanks on here could even point to any of those countries on a map (aaagh my poor karma).
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
Digital Cinema functions in a way that enable different theaters to watermark the same movie "package" (the hard drive that gets mailed around) differently. Obviously, a movie on a screen is just a movie on the screen either way, which doesn't affect the difficulty of camcordering it, but it DOES enable the studio to identify the source, and talk to the theater in question. The frame-accurate watermarking is accomplished by a video overlay (it's not part of the video encode), the full details of which (timecode, on-screen position) are known only by the folks at the end of line, right when the video, audio, and subtitles are combined and before the packages are shipped off.
It's actually a simple step that helps the studios TRACK piracy, with the long-term value of deterring piracy at particularly "leaky" theaters.
Digital cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase its profits.
In absolutely all cases i can think of going to digital has actually made piracy not only easier but faster. Gone are the days where someone from the cutting room or the projector room would have to go through the lengthy process of transferring to a digicam or whatever. Now that the films will come pre-digitised, its just a matter of moving bits from one format to another.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Send them to "where"? Can you be little more specific?
Some clarificiations...
There are also scary things that you can do with digital film to discourage piracy, such as watermarking films by theater, date, and time.
Watermarking is being done with analog film right now, and has been going on for the past year or so.
If you look at a modern digital film, such as Spiderman 2, you'll occasionally see some dots along the bottom of the screen.
Correct, and the same is done with analog but the dots are in a pattern across the screen.
police can track down which group of people saw the movie, and if you paid in advance or with a credit card, they know who was there
Thankfully, you are very wrong. Certainly the police won't be tracking anything. The MPAA can look at copies downloaded, and track it to the theater. Theaters absolutely will not, (and more importantly have no ability to) give up patron credit card information regarding particular shows. The digital cinema systems do not imprint a unique id code per screening of the film. Theater POS and backend office software do not effectively track credit card purchases by showing. What will happen is the MPAA may discover that a film was copied at a certain theater, and inform the management, perhaps offering lots of helpful pamphlets to give to employees to train them on how to catch pirates.
I know this because I'm the chief systems administrator and part of the upper management of a theater chain, and the person responsible for evaluating the software systems we use, and dealing with technical discussions with other companies / organizations. Believe me, if what you said was true, I would know the precise details of how it works.
R.
India is bigger population wise than the USA and the European Union put together. Indians might be asking the same question of Hollywood, and why Bollywood has been named after it.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Take a look at the list of stars behind the characters' voices. They're not unknowns. They're pretty big stars that command hefty compensation.
So this is flamebait but the parent isn't? Oh boy you guys need to get your heads out of your arses. Yes I was stupid to reply to flamebait but that doesn't make this flamebait unless the person moderating is as ignorant and insular as the original poster. If the parent or the following post had been moderated as "funny" that would be one thing but "interesting"? All I'm asking is that people from the US try just try a little bit not to live up to the stereotypes that the rest of the world holds about you. I was under the misconception that /. was a good place to find non-stereotypical americans. I'm not angry, just disappointed :)
Maybe I'm too used to monitors set to 85Hz and games at > 60fps, but 24 fps is a really crappy framerate.
I especially noticed the crappy framerate in the LOtR scenery pans- maybe because it was digitally rendered and nonmotion blurred?
Anyway, it wasn't just LOtR, you can see that flicker/ripple thing in the cinema all the time.
Filming in film is also crappy for low light shooting, unless you really want a particular effect.
Wow, those are some hot women. Nearly every one of them... wow
What are Idian women like anyway? What do they generally look for in men?
"Their target audience doesn't want to see realism, or even something down to earth. They want to see love stories where a poor person is escalated into another caste because their lover (not in the literal sense) is wealthy. They want to see 20 exotic locations that they will never get to physically visit, all compressed into a single movie, even though there is no reason whatsoever within the plot or storyline to visit 20 different locations"
Y'know, I'm not a impoverished Indian villager, but I don't want pay money to see day to day stuff either.
Why should I pay money to see dark movies about the bad guy winning, or stupid violence when I could just turn on the TV and watch the news.
And if I wanted cynicism, there's plenty of it nowadays for free.
Say all you like about movies like "Finding Nemo" but those do make money, it makes me wonder why Hollywood makes the usual movies they do - if they're really interested in profit. Do they have some sort of agenda or something?
At least Bollywood is making what their target audience wants (or will at least settle for). Whereas just look at this year's lack lustre stuff from Hollywood.
Movies made by heartless accountants or executives or committees?
Seems almost like either there has to be some Emperor's New Clothes syndrome somewhere (Yes sir, the movie will be a hit), or they are intentionally doing this.
By the time that each Bollywood film goes to video, it will be pirated so many times that the jaggies will have completely disappeared, and Mrs. Dixit will still drive those shiftless Saudis absolutely crazy.
If Bollywood makes less movies that require so much singing and choreography, that should at least save on payroll for each movie.
On a more serious note, since English is spoken in India, Bollywood has a great chance to be a serious global player in the entertainment business.
Charles Jo
An MTV will be MTV - be it Indian or American.
If you think its dishing out american shit in America, do you expect it not to dish out Indian shit in India?
Its the same shit, of different nationality.. er.. or something..
It's interesting that none of the movie industry people quoted in the article says that the savings associated with digital screening will be passed on to the consumers of the crappy movies. Rather, they hope that the savings will offset the losses of the turkeys. Well, in the long run, this might be the RIAA saga with CDs: charging people too much might make them want to wait and steal the movie instead.
It would be nice not to have to cough up $10 for a crappy movie anymore. Doing that is bad enough. Knowing that by wasting $10 and 2 hours of one's life one may actually be subsidizing crappy movies even more, one may be inclined to, well, not participate in the bargain. This is not my situation. I barely see two movies a year, but the larger moviegoing audience might not feel quite the same way.
"...who search the reason of things
Are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves." --Euripides, The Medea
All awesome.