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- Paramount has signed a deal with AMC Theaters and Cineplex to allow two of its upcoming films to be made available for home viewing about two weeks after their theatrical run has dwindled to 300 theaters or less.
Not buyin' it. That's two of five theater chains in the US, which relates entirely to the American market, which at this point is 20% of the world gross. The European chains have skunked big films early when they see a DVD release earlier than they like and european and chinese measures against piracy are less effective. This won't be a full-scale roll-out of other films because the world distributors won't stand for it. Some Paranormal Activity sequel does not a trend make.
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AMC, one of the theaters that is working with Paramount, has theaters in both China and Europe so I'll be interested to see if they work on moving this deal over to those markets as well. I think you are probably right that this won't end up taking off but it's an interesting idea. I'm also wondering if the theater chains agreed to do it with the two films listed, which likely won't have huge audience draws anyways since they are smaller releases, so when they don't make much money from the deal on their end they can say it doesn't work for them and have an excuse to avoid doing it with bigger releases in the future.
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Yeah, the films they're talking about would have been B-movies back in the era when there were still B-movies. That's a segment that has gone almost entirely to direct distribution already. The only thing the exhibitors really give a shit about anymore is event viewing and that shit ain't never going cheap so long as there are big screens with rented seats in front of them.
This is interesting to me, especially with many of the theaters in my area (and around the country from what I can see) making large upgrades to their facilities including nicer seating, better menus, and alcohol service in an attempt to draw adult patrons back into movie theaters. I wonder whether this idea will take off since traditionally theater owners have been hesitant to allow early DVD/streaming releases out of a fear that it would hurt box office sales. While the article indicates that Paramount will be offering incentives to theater owners to participate, it will be interesting to see if theater owners take them up on it. I also wonder if any other studios will follow suite or if they'll hold off to see if Paramount's experiment pays off.
francopoli · 1251 days ago · link ·
The last movie to come out on VHS was "A History of Violence" in 2005. I wonder what the last DVD movie will be, and in what year. I'll expect that BluRay keeps kicking due to the better quality and the crappy bandwidth those of us in the middle of the country deal with, at least until 2030 or so.
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That seems crazy that the last VHS movie was released 10 years ago. It feels so much longer. It will be interesting to see if/when DVD dies out but I think you're right that BluRay will stick around for a while longer since a lot of places can't get consistent internet speeds for streaming, which is a shame.
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I think there is still a decent market going on at this point, although it's definitely gone down. Some people still like to own their movies, I'm sure. But this deal would allow for digital distribution along with the DVD sales at an earlier time frame than usual. So that aspect would change as well.