The mystery of simultaneous release
In a recent kiosk post, I talked about a system currently being tested wherein movies are released simultaneously in theaters, on DVD, on the Internet, and on cable TV. Here’s an article that’s more about that.
The article points to the power of Wal-Mart as the biggest stopping force in the PPV delay game, since their DVD sales are a full 1/3 of Hollywood’s revenue each year and Wal-Mart fears the home delivery method. This ties in with Netflix as well, and their recently shelved On Demand gamble. However, this experiment overrides them all, since it’s all done with independent distributors and film makers.
Observe.
Along with his longtime business partner Todd Wagner, Cuban became a multibillionaire selling his Internet company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. Cuban and Wagner then created an entertainment conglomerate that includes controlling interests in a movie production company (HDNet Films), a distributor (Magnolia Pictures), an art-house chain (Landmark Theatres), a television and video library (Rysher Entertainment), and a high-definition television network (HDNet). Cuban believes that Hollywood’s distribution system requires radical change. He wants to do away with artificial windows so that consumers can buy a movie, as he notes in his blog, “How they want it, when they want it, where they want it.” He argues that movies should be made available simultaneously on cable television, DVD, and in movie theaters, letting consumers decide whether they prefer to see it at home (even if it means paying a premium for a new release) or in the theater.
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To be sure, Hollywood has a long history of resisting new forms of delivery. When television first came on the scene in the 1940s, the studios attempted to kill this infant medium by refusing to let the networks show films from their libraries or use their facilities to produce programs. When the VCR was introduced, the studios attempted to strangle it with eight years of litigation. Even when Sony and Warner Bros. launched the DVD, the other major studios did not join them for a year or so. By now, the top studio executives recognize that the electronic delivery of digital movies is inevitableâ€â€it is only a question of who will defy Wal-Mart and when.
Neat, huh? Of course, this may be a total failure, because, really, who gives a damn about independent films? But in a perfect world the domino effect would echo throughout Hollywood and digital movies would beam from sea to shining sea in stunning High Definition format.