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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.
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?
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...
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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.
If they make it soon enough after the initial release it would totally be worth it.
$30 is ~ what you would pay for two tickets during non-prime hours, without the popcorn, soda, and goobers. If this were a family movie I could have my wife and kids plus whatever relatives and friends (especially their kids) in front of a current in theater movie with all the popcorn my hot-air popper can make and all the 3-liter soda and candy they can handle during that time period for less than the cost of three tickets.
The biggest problem I see is the spills directly affect furniture I own and I don't get the public performance benefit which counters my wife's pause button abuse issue.
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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.
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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.