As media becomes increasingly digital and portable,
will people legally purchase and download a first run movie the same
day that the DVD goes on sale? If so, DVDs and their cases may become
as unnecessary as CDs in today’s era of MP3 downloads, video ipods,
media centers and increasingly cheaper flash drives and smaller hard
drives.
There will always be movies that people want to on
the big screen theater experience, films with special effects that may
get lost on the small screen. But increasingly many people may wait
til a movie comes out on DVD to buy or rent via Netflix to watch it.
Studios recognize this shift and are participating in
companies such as Movielink and CinemaNow, but Steven Soderbergh and
Mark Cuban are taking this idea even further and giving consumers
control over how and where they want to watch a movie, collapsing the
time from theater to DVD to one week. If this catches on, studios may
have to rethink their DVD release timing in order to meet consumer
expectations and impatience.
——–
Reuters reports that Movielink and CinemaNow, two
online movie services founded by major Hollywood studios, will begin
selling major films like "Brokeback Mountain," the same day the DVD’s
are released in stores. Movielink’s prices will range from $20 to $30,
but could go as low as $10 for older, "classic" movies. CinemaNow’s
will range from $9.95 to $19.95.
Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, "Bubble," was an
extreme example of the narrowing of the time between theatrical and DVD
release. The film was produced by Broadcast.com founder, Dallas
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment. It opened on Jan. 27
in Landmark Theaters (also owned by Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment), aired
on cable TV on HDNet (founded in 2001 by Cuban and TV executive Philip
Garvin), and the DVD was available on Jan. 31 (at major retail outlets
and at Landmark Theaters).
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5169316
Peter Koo
Comments
Connections