Off topic - coul there be a "Film As Business" section for discussions like these?

REASONS TO READ VARIETY - two interesting things I'd like to discuss which I'll post separately:

Again, from Tuesday's Variety:
The new trend, starting with Soderberg's Bubble, is to distribute in theatres, DVD, and Pay-Per-View at the same time. I'm curious what people's thoughts are on this.

I, for one, think that - contrary to indie fears - this will actually contribute to the indie industry. Firstly, people may not be willing to go out of their way to see a relatively obscure film in the theatre, or buy the DVD, but they will watch it in the comfort of their home. Unless huge amounts of money are spent on distribution, we can't change that. So we should get increased exposure to independent produce. To quote the article:

"If the movies became widely available, he said, it will help to ease the frustration of people in middle America who read rave reviews of indie films that end upplaying theatrically only in New York, Los Angeles and a few other big cities."

Bubble is certainly a movie that would die and fall beneath the radar if it weren't distributed this way. It's experimental enough to repel mainstream viewers, and so short that it hardly merits a theatrical trip.

I'll be buying stock in Comcast, or Cablevision if they're publicly traded. I expect this'll take off (IFC will be treating two movies like this per month). With any luck, increased indie exposure means increased indie interest among those who would normally not be interested. If that happens, then indie theatrical profits should go way up in a decade or two, not down.

If it weren't the first film to do so with a big Hollywood director nobody would care. Soderberg is only doin' this because he's a millionaire and knows he's gunna pack in only that much more $$$ when Ocean's 574 comes. I deffinately don't think thsi will improve the chances of getting good films, as moving to video and digital as a cheaper medium would have done so long ago. People, or at least I, prefer those I trust that come to this site and put out there films and have twice the creativity of anyone trying to do this new schtick release format. Only done to save the money in advertising and it'll never work because if such a film had the remote possibility of making money by itself they'd just release it theatrically. A whole lotta smoke over nothing here, IMO.

What worries me honestly are the studio heads. Bubble is the exact wrong movie to test for multi-release. As you were saying, it probably isn't a movie worth seeing in the theater. I'm worried that the heads will look at it and go, "Brilliant, look how well it did in the non-theater markets. We're going to have to paradigm shift our entire work flow to this highly synergistic strategy." (Because in my head all of those schmucks talk like that.) And everything else will come tumbling after.

I currently don't have the luxury of a giant, plasma, progressive scan HDTV with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, so I'm not looking forward, quite yet, to the destruction of most movie theaters because a, what should've been, direct to video movie did well on video. It's probably just a worst case scenario, but I really do believe this could hurt movies and theaters if it picks up steam.

As for the indie connection, so what. DVD and pay-per-view have been along forever. I don't see how my movie playing in a theater and out on video at the same time could honestly help.

elliott...

I can see simultaneous non-theatrical release helping indie films gain momentum until people want to see them in theaters. Online, free or very cheap would help the most. People still won't bother buying or renting a DVD they've never heard of, but they will download a movie their friends link them to. Maybe they could even release them online FIRST and then in theaters once there was interest.

I do see online distribution being a good thing for the industry in general. Apple's heading that way with iTunes, and I expect them to revolutionize the film industry in exactly the same way they did with the music industry. Heck, I'd pay $5 to own a digital copy of a movie, which I can burn to a DVD and watch in my player, or copy to an iPod, or watch on my laptop.

quote:

And everything else will come tumbling after.

I reckon Cinema will be around for a long long time. TV didn't wreck the industry as they expected it would - it in fact opened up a new demographic. Walter Murch makes a great argument for it in "In The Blink of an Eye."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bob A,