In reviewing the December issue of Wired Magazine I read a short interview with Dot Com billionaire Mark Cuban about his new businesses related to the movie industry. Cuban and his business partner plan to offer film development and production through their production companies for film and HDTV. Now having just purchased Landmark Theatres, the largest chain of art house theatres in the US, they have a distribution channel for their films.
What’s most interesting is their plan to run an all-digital operation. This gives them the ability to move very very quickly.
“You could shoot your film on digital, dump it on a hard drive, edit it on a laptop, send us that file, and 20 minutes later we could show it in a theater or upload it to a satellite.”
Also of interest is their plan to upend the regular rules of Hollywood.
“Why can’t I preorder a DVD and receive it the day the film is released in theaters? Or buy it on my way out of the theater if I liked what I saw?”
This is something that I have written about before. Producers make more money on DVD/Video sales than they do on theatrical releases. The theatrical release of a movie is becoming a 90-minute marketing promotion for the sales of the DVD. And we all complain about the ads before the movie starts?
Step One: Make long movie and movie about making long movie.
Step Two: Cut out interesting scenes from long movie to save for DVD inclusion.
Step Three: Release not so long movie in theaters.
Unnecessary Step Four: Wait three to six months. To what, build anticipation?
Step Four: Sell DVDs with Not So Long Movie made long again with scenes added back in plus movie about making long movie.
Step Five: Visit money down at the bank.
Cuban makes a point. Why do we have to wait for the DVD version of the movie? Sure there’s money to be made by putting it out to cable and pay per view but as Cuban points out.
“One thing I learned from the Mavs (Dallas Mavericks NBA team Cuban owns) is that you can watch the game on TV, but you’ll still go to the game, because it’s a different experience.”
Hello, it’s that experience thing again. If going to the theater to see a movie is a good valuable experience there is nothing to fear from DVDs in home theaters. Theater operators are so desperately focused on the old world way of doing things (making all their money on the overpriced concessions) they can’t see the future where the content is digital and it’s all about the experience of being in the theater.
For more on the Movie Theater as an experience click here.
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