"Let's be honest: There is no theatrical movie business any more, and there hasn't been for a long time. Except for the biggest Hollywood movies and sleeper independent films, theatrical is a loss leader. You get reviews and publicity and generally lose money or break even if you're lucky. It's all about DVDs and the other so-called ancillaries." -- publicist, public speaker and streetcorner provocateur Reid Rosefelt responding to Robert Cort's "Straight to DVD" op-ed piece in Saturday's New York Times.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on May 8, 2006 at 8:18 AM
comment #1
JRE says ...
Here’s my favorite part of that Times op-ed: “A study by the Motion Picture Association of America this week revealed that piracy was nearly double what the studios had estimated.†I’m shocked, shocked to see a study that the studios’ trade association conducted confirmed their pre-held beliefs about their favorite boogeyman are worse than they thought. Listen one last time, MPAA, RIAA, et al.: 80% of the “pirates†wouldn’t have paid for your product in the first place. You’re not losing money you never would have made to begin with.
Posted by JRE at May 8, 2006 12:07 PM
comment #2
Daniel Zelter says ...
I think the problem is that most movies nowadays are big budget straight-to-home-video productions, when up until now, the straight-to-video stuff would have been produced on a low budget. The shift probably started when they actually paid celebrities to endorse that crap. (Theodore Rex, anyone? Or how about the recent output from Van Damme, Seagal and Stallone?) Now you see Hollywood studios giving hundreds of millions of dollars to set designs for, at best, a $2 million concept. They're getting greedy with all those tax incentives they get in other countries, and they waste more money than usual.
Posted by Daniel Zelter at May 8, 2006 2:12 PM
comment #3
Tuckenie says ...
Oh let's be realistic here. The source of this problem is found in movie prices. The quality of movies isn't lower than usual it's just that nobody wants to pay ten bucks to see a load of junk when they can rent it for half that price and watch it at home without any annoying disturbances, with the abilty to pause, and with cheaper popcorn. Movie priacy is just another symptom of the same problem. The cost for tickets has exceeded the demand and the entire industry is on the brink of implosion if they don't reform the system and lower prices. That means sharing more revenue with theaters, something studios and distributors have been reluctant to do with the big risks they take financially. This year looks like another disappointing summer that will mark a downward spiral if they don't wake up to reality.
Posted by Tuckenie at May 8, 2006 4:23 PM
comment #4
Brad Abraham says ...
I concur with Tuckenie over movie ticket prices; there's a definite psychological effect that ticket prices over ten bucks has. Last year a Canadian theater chain lowered their prices during the "off" months, January thru April. I found I went to the movies more often, and up until I moved away in August they hadn't raised them back up either. In NYC you can bypass the multiplex, walk down the street and buy a bootleg of the film you were planning to see for roughly the same price as a ticket.
Posted by Brad Abraham at May 9, 2006 5:42 AM