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Studios Flirt With Offering Movies Early in Home for $30 (variety.com)
It looks like Hollywood studios are not kidding around the concept of making the movies available in the home mere weeks after their theatrical debuts. Variety has a new report this week that claims that six out of seven Hollywood studios are in discussions. From the report: However, the companies, particularly Fox and Warner Bros., are showing greater flexibility about timing. Initially, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara had kicked off negotiations with exhibitors by offering to cut them in on a percentage of digital revenues if they agreed to let them debut films on-demand for $50 a rental some 17 days after they opened. Currently, most major movies are only made available to rent some 90 days after their release. Some studios offer films for sale electronically roughly 70 days after their bow in theaters. Other studios, particularly Fox and Universal, felt that $50 was too steep a price to ask consumers to pay. They are now trying to get exhibitors to agree to a plan that would involve a lower priced premium on-demand option that was made available at a slightly later date, according to three studio insiders and two exhibition insiders. Fox and Warner Bros., for instance, are considering making films available between 30 to 45 days after their opening, but at $30 a rental, a price they believe won't give customers sticker shock. Universal, which is seen as being the most aggressive negotiator in these talks, would like the home entertainment debut to remain in the 20-day range.
$30-50 for an in home movie rental?
Hahahahaha
$30 is the price for 2 seats. If you are a family with kids the $30 is a great value, you can do popcorn and drinks at home and save even more.
20 days is not that long. Less than 3 weeks.
You can kiss movie theatres good by with this option.
Meanwhile, Netflix is producing originals from Scorcese, Will Smith and Brad Pitt all for $10/month. I'll wait until these $30 movies hit Redbox for a buck.
I guess they figured that at $50, it would be a total flop and they'd just look stupid. At $30, they actually have something there, now that ticket prices are so f@cking high that I go only once every couple of years. I likely won't use it, but there are probably those that will.
So film enthusiasts are supposed to spend themselves silly on 4K TV sets, upconverting BluRay players, broadband internet or streaming setups, and then you can't view a film the day it is released because you need to be at the cinema for that? What is the difference between me "not going to the cinema and waiting 90 days for the rental" and "not going to the cinema and waiting 0 days for the rental"? People who WANT to go to cinema WILL go to the cinema. What's the point of keeping people who like to see films @home waiting for 20 - 90 days anyway?
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
This will finally erase any remaining vestiges of differentiation between "true movies" and "direct to video"/TV shows etc. Which, in turn, in due time will eat into their profits. At the same time, they don't have much choice, do they?
Meanwhile, Netflix is producing originals from Scorcese, Pitt, Will Smith all for $10/month. I'll save my $30 and wait for these movies to hit Redbox for a buck.
Didn't we discuss this 2 or so weeks ago? Here's a summary of my conclusions (to save everybody time).
Your local theater chain is going to hate this idea, few people will pay this much to see the movie at home instead of the theater, somebody will figure out how to pirate the film from their living room with much better quality and have a full resolution torrent up within 3 hours of the film's release... I think distributers are fooling themselves thinking this will rake in more revenue...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Pirates, duh. If you can watch it at home, you can record it. Most movies make all their theater money in that 3 week span.
I would want at least $100 from the studio to waste my time watching their movies. $800 to suffer through anything with Tom Cruse in it.
The industry's mea culpa will be for the major studios to buy out all of these cinema chains and close a significant portion of them down. That's the only way the theaters will agree to this. Regular movie theaters will go the way of the drive in with a few kept around for nostalgia. This is a good thing.
There are those customers who want to see the movie as soon after release as possible. Theatres depend on that segment, and it apparently is fairly large.
There was some earlier Slashdot story that said something like $50 or $70.. glad realism is entering the picture here. Very happy to see some movies on release at home for $30, that actually may get traction.
A side effect may be further upgrades to people's home theater setups as more people take advantage of the tranquility of a movie at home without a bunch of randos.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We are trying to do to movies what we did to software with open source. Reduce its value so much that the people working in the industry struggle to survive. In a capitalist society if you dont pay cash for something you dont value it. We devalued software development by going from license fee based software to open source. Now we want to devalue entertainment by going from Studio funded blockbusters to all Indy movies made on shoestring budgets where the actors have to hold day jobs (Just like those contributing to open source have to hold day jobs)
**Life is too short to be serious**
I would never go to the theater again, and I really enjoy going to movies. But at $30 plus the savings on snacks and travel time? That's a significant savings for my family.
So because of "Pirates" I can't a) see a film @home the day it is released b) install a game without being tied to Steam/the Internet c) install any commercial software without the same kind of DRM/internet license check.
I'm a paying customer - should I be PENALIZED again and again and again for what a bunch of teenage pirates do on the internet?
Or should my basic rights as a lawful, paying customer be upheld EVEN if pirates exploit that?
I would love this. I have two young babies and a nice home theater system. I'd save money on a sitter, and be able to pause when I want to take a mid-movie pee break.
I'm obviously not the market for this. We still pay $1.50 to get our movies at Redbox. We maybe watch three movies a month, so about $5 a month on movies (sometimes less when we get a Redbox coupon). Paying even $30 a month would be extreme sticker shock for us. Heck, every Tuesday around here all the theaters have $5 movie day when all movies all day long are $5, even new releases. So it is just $10 for my wife and I to go watch a new release in the theater. $30? Not going to happen.
Fuck Hollywood, a bunch of rich and condescending assholes. I am not going to watch your shit, even if it was free.
If you are upper middle class family with 2 children and own a media room with a large (60 inch +) TV with fancy seats and a seperate speaker system, then it makes sense to get this product.
Your media room is close enough to theater environment, and it is cheaper to pay $30 for one movie than to buy 4 movie tickets.
And you can also invite friends over and have a party.
Think of it like a superbowl party, but instead it is a DeadPool 2 party.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
2 seats in a theatre. With a 75 foot screen and high-tech sound.
That you have to sit 100 feet away from. And the "high tech" sound is all about that base, bout that base, bout that base.
I have a projector. When I watch a movie at home the screen is filling as much of my vision as a pretty large movie theater.
I also honestly have MUCH better sound, and that is with a middle of the range receiver with cheap speakers (but there are five of them plus a subwoofer).
$30 to watch a newish movie in your own home is terrible value when compared to literally every other in-home viewing option.
That made no sense and I could not parse at all what you were trying to say, except for the general concept you were trying to get across of "you are wrong". But as noted, you don't even understand that sitting closer to a smaller screen gives an equivalent effect and you consider movie theater audio to be "high tech".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
RedBox has not too delayed movies on BlueRay for $2 per night.
Time-shift your expectations and stop needlessly pissing away money. Put the remaining $58 per showing into their college funds.
Eventually the movie industry will learn that the damage that it's doing to itself trying to prevent piracy is significantly greater than the damage that piracy is doing to it. It took Apple taking control over a very lucrative slice of the distribution market before the music industry learned that DRM does little to prevent piracy, but does a lot to create distribution monopolies outside of their control. I wonder how long it will be for someone like Amazon or Netflix to grab a sufficiently large slice of the distribution market that they realise that allowing DRM-free downloads from multiple other sources is the only way to regain their bargaining power.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Agreed, I would love to pirate stuff Day 1. Sometimes there's a movie/game so good I can't wait and I buy it...but your vision sounds so much better, where I can pirate everything right away.
Spend enough money for your kitchen equipment and ingredients, and why eat out anymore? Even if you suck at cooking, there are plenty of options for eating a variety of cuisine of decent quality at home.
Here's why.... people get stir-crazy and want an experience... an event... a reason to get out. True, not all theatres are a pleasant experience, but we have a few in my town with huge leather reclining seats, wide isles, and other and massively overpriced VIP options. So sometimes an 'experience' means leaving the house and sharing it with random strangers.
Oh, and 'bout that bass, I'd probably be evicted from my apartment if I decided to get 'dat bass. So pushing my culinary comments aside, for a lot of people, a big ol' theatre is still a better experience than in-home viewing.
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
Are we in a negotiations stage? If so I would watch any good new release at home on the same day for $10 Give me old movies for $2 each and I'll buy 100's of them if they are cross platform watchable to replace my 800+ dvd collection. Hell even if I lost some of them in say HD crashed I wouldn't care cause @ $2 I'd buy them all again.
But the stud's want to be a get more blood out of a stone boutique business and charge $50 that only some people would buy vs selling for $2 that tens of millions would buy and re-buy.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Spend enough money for your kitchen equipment and ingredients, and why eat out anymore? Even if you suck at cooking, there are plenty of options for eating a variety of cuisine of decent quality at home.
You don't even have to spend that much on equipment or ingredients to get better food.
Here's why.... people get stir-crazy and want an experience
For dining out it makes more sense because you do not have to wash dishes, and SOMETIMES you get better food than you could have made yourself.
For movies there are no dishes to watch. The overall vastly negative experience of the theater, from absurdly high prices on everything to crowds to unwanted noise during the movie, mean that the "experience" is pretty much vastly better than what you can have at home with just a bit of effort in purchasing decent equipment (which you'll be using a lot anyway as most people make heavy use of the TV).
I personally am all about getting out and spending for quality experiences. But nothing about movies makes much sense to me in terms of experience so it makes a lot more sense to me to spend less on a movie at home than a theater, and save your time out for REAL experiences, like concerts or plays or whatever,
I'd probably be evicted from my apartment if I decided to get 'dat bass.
Headphones or one of these things
Not everyone lives in an apartment, a house is quite common if you are not in the bay area.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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Or should my basic rights as a lawful, paying customer be upheld EVEN if pirates exploit that?
What exactly is this "right" you have to access content produced by a private company?
That you have to sit 100 feet away from.
You know there's multiple rows of seats to choose from right? There's a range to choose from you might find enjoyable. I suspect you hate the theatre in general for some reason though.
I have a projector and I like to rub my balls on my awesome sound system.
Good for you.
That made no sense and I could not parse at all what you were trying to say, except for the general concept you were trying to get across of "you are wrong".
I think maybe you're somehow overly offended by my post and your rage has left you unable to parse basic english.
But as noted, you don't even understand that sitting closer to a smaller screen gives an equivalent effect and you consider movie theater audio to be "high tech".
Like I said, some people (apparently you judging by your over-the-top reaction) will like this kind of service, and that's fine. But most people don't have a sound system that they would rub their balls on.
Studios: Make all the material available all the time, everywhere, at reasonable prices. Insist in your pig-headedness to stick to a dying business model, and watch how lots of potential income disappears in front of your eyes. Learn once and for all that most people download movies from so-called pirate sites not to stick it to the man, but because it is convenient and easy. Most of us would pay you a reasonable amount per movie (stick your silly packages you know where) event if we could get them free. The choice is yours.
Way too much. I'm fine waiting for the blu ray or UHD, which is far better quality than streaming anyways. For absolutely critical movies (e.g. Star Wars) I'll see it in a theater anyways.
Side rant: These fucking ads at the top of Slashdot is the worst fucking thing ever. It keeps flickering as I scroll and covering up the content. Get fucking rid of these, you asshats.
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Sounds like a good idea to me. Too expensive for me I think, but I don't see how there wouldn't be a market for this, and I also don't see how it would cut into movie theater's profits at all.
Shit, if families with noisy kids start doing this instead, it might get me out of the house to go see more movies in the theater myself.
Win-win for the studios.
This is the part where the movie theater associations of each state get together and protest the movie studios being allowed to sell directly to customers, right?
Oh wait, that's car dealers! Sorry, my mistake.
Getting it early just translates to not getting it artificially delayed.
I thought they were offering you a whole set of movies for that kind of cash!! Don't they realize that you like more than one movie?? Or is this for the upper $250.000/yr class? ..The soda and popcorn prices alone, will kill you at a movie with your kids. Someone is raking in to much money in Hollywood.
When we take kids to the movies, we have to use earplugs because they never turn it down to child-safe levels for children's movies.
In my area some theaters have once-a-week baby-friendly viewings during the day. Generally has about 20-30 mothers toting a baby or young toddler, and they reduce the volume and keep the lighting brighter. I took a day off to go with my wife and it wasn't bad. Maybe they have a similar offer in your area? The caveat of course is that there is the occasional baby crying.
How much did you spend on your much better sound, amortized over the number of movies you watch?
$50 17 days after a movie opens in a theatre? $30 30-45 days after?
3 weeks after a movie opens, I can safely go to a mostly empty theatre and watch the movie for $11. Why would I pay $50 for that?
Heck sometimes the movie is gone less than 3 weeks after it opens. In those cases I wait to watch it for free on tv because it was probably a crappy movie.
They need to release new movies on demand or via some streaming site, same day as theaters, for like $5 tops.
That will make them go on torrent sites even quicker!
How much did you spend on your much better sound, amortized over the number of movies you watch?
I'm not sure what he spent, but lets say it is a very high quality $4k sound system. If he is a typical American he is watching around 1400 hours of TV per year, but lets say only 500 of that is TV where you would appreciate the sound system (the rest is news and talk shows I guess). So if he keeps the sound system for 10 years, it has cost him about $1.50 per two hours of movie / sports / high budget TV content where he is enjoying the extra sound quality.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
It's the whole thing that I pay higher prices for.
I go to a theater to lose myself in cobbled up surroundings I'm not responsible for and simply order goodies off the shelf instead of having to cook them so I can nibble as I watch whatever it is on a huge screen with bombastic sound when required.
I'm going to pay twice the amount to forgo all the things I like about movie going why?
If I'm forgoing the theater, I certainly don't care enough about the viewing delay to shell out twice what I didn't the first time. Hell, if I'm popping $30, I'll wait for the DVD instead of a one-off viewing.
How are the studios in discussions about release dates and pricing and not in jail? This is blatant price fixing and supply limiting. I didn't see which third world country are these discussions taking place but it can't be any Western country.
You know there's multiple rows of seats to choose from right?
You mean seats that are actually level with the screen, or seats that are closer and make you look way up and are WAY TOO LOUD?
Yes I know about the range of choices.
You do realize at home you can sit closer or further from a TV also? Only you get to also select the hight you see the screen from?
DUH.
Good for you.
Not just good for me, good for everyone. Even the cheapest projector gives a really good picture these days. And it means you can set up a "theater" almost anywhere.
I think maybe you're somehow overly offended by my post your rage has left you unable to parse basic english.
Perhaps your english was too basic to be comprehensible? I also do not speak Cave Man. I note you didn't provide a translation, undoubtedly you yourself could not even understand your own gibberish.
But most people don't have a sound system that they would rub their balls on.
But anyone COULD for less than the price of a few movies. Even a cheap set of headphones can sound worlds better than crappy theater sound.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How much did you spend on your much better sound, amortized over the number of movies you watch?
I bought my speaker set for say $200 total about 20 years ago... so yeah. You could easily spend much less on speakers today for a really good quality, so long as you do not also buy Monster cables.
I did finally upgrade my also 20 year old receiver to support newer HDMI standards. That was about $200 and I expect to use that for at least ten years (modern electronics as we all know not being nearly as durable so 20 is unrealistic) so again the amortized amount is like buying four kernels of popped corn.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I agree. Yet $30 is still too expensive. For a home viewing. The price 'may' equal two tickets out of the house, but remember that the movie theater's profit is added to ticket price. When distributors can pipe directly into one's home I'd like to see some savings in the price, (since we're not having to include the theater). So how about $15 or even $10? The distributors are serving up 1's & 0's... not like they have to sweep popcorn off the floor or pay a bathroom water bill when I leave.
Final offer.
Not at all. There are movies that release directly to TV, YouTube, NetFlix, etc. There are games (I have some) that install directly and don't utilize the Internet. There is commercial software (I have some) that installs sans DRM and can magically be put on machines not connected to the Internet at all and still function fully.
...rip 'em off in the home.
A few stories down in my browser is a story about how 18-24 year-olds aren't going to the theater. Why, oh, why would anybody balking at spending $10+/seat in a theater be happy to cough up $30 to watch the same movie in their home?
If that's the best that Hollywood executives can come up with as an answer to a problem of declining box office receipts, then there needs to be a mass housecleaning of the people running the studios. Apparently those currently residing in the boardrooms... Just. Don't. Get. It.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
$200...really good quality. Yikes.
Assuming 5 channels...Average $40/speaker. I don't think you can get any cheaper than that. You can't home build a good speaker for $40, the bass element alone is more. You can't home build a single sub and 5 mid/highs for $200.
$200 will get you a really good quality set of headphones (or pieces of shit beats if you're stupid).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Fair enough. I imagined you were one of those fools who spent $2000 on audio cables alone.
I guess that means we get better quality torrents on the first day instead of waiting weeks for the bluray.
Ffs stop this shit, we can wait 3 months ...
That's nice. I don't. I know exactly one person who does.
Me too, although that puts me in a minority. I think my upstairs neighbours would get upset if I cranked it up to the level of bass I can physically feel; like I get in a cinema.
Sure. This is great for those who have a projector and a surround sound setup. And who absolutely have to see the latest movies. But then I can see pretty much anything older than 3 months for a fraction of the cost.
It makes no difference what it costs them. The unit cost to them is negligible. The price they charge is the one that maximises profit.
If you're willing to pay $30, unless twice as many people will pay, why would they charge less? To make less money?
I can pay $5.15 (tax included) for a matinee ticket which is before 4 pm or maybe 6 pm at a major theater (live in part of the 5th or 6th largest metro area in US).
A hot dog and a med drink is another $11-12> You can get reward points on concession and ticket spending too but I havent done so. All seats at a min are the sliding back recliners which I prefer over other I have used. For a higher fee there is as upper tier 3d option.
SO $30 bucks to see a movie I missed in theater isnt gonna happen with me. I find paying $5 or more for a not even recently released movie by streaming is way too much money-this why folks pirate-they set their prices too high in theaters and keep em high via streaming so its easy to e\rationalize the big bad studios deserve to get screwed out of revenue.
How about actually asking consumers what they want?
Bay area? I live in Ontario Canada, you insensitive clod. :)
And agreed - but a lot of people live in condos, apartments, and semi-detached homes where the extra bass won't always make you friends with your neighbours... my point was that not everyone lives in a single home, so sometimes the sound is more impressive, (if not better), in a theatre.
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.