Movie Studios Considering Tightening Release Windows When They Should Be Eliminating Them
from the closer dept
The very idea of major movie studios simultaneously complaining about movie piracy during the initial release of a film and instituting long release windows so that films are only in the theater for legitimate viewing has never made a bit of sense. As study after study has shown, one great way to reduce piracy for a film is to make it available for home viewing as early as possible. The reason for this should be obvious: in this case, piracy of a film is a sort of market study, one which informs the studios that a part of the public really wants to watch the movie at home as opposed to in the theater. Trying to force that part of the market into the theater by delaying home rentals or purchases no longer works, because piracy is an option. Stamping out piracy has never worked, but making the film product available the way the customer wants would, at least to decent percentages.
And it seems this decades long lesson may finally be finding purchase by its students in the film studios, as several major studios are reportedly considering slashing release windows by a third.
According to a Variety report, six of the seven biggest Hollywood studios are considering plans to allow new movies to be delivered via VOD into the living room between 30 and 45 days after launch for around $30. Fox and Warner are said to favor this structure but other plans are also floating around. Universal are reported to be pushing for a VOD release less than three weeks after launch, with Warner Bros. suggesting a shorter 17-day delay but with a larger $50 rental price.
Of course, any move to bring content to the home more quickly could have a profound effect on the many theater chains around the United States and present a serious stumbling block in negotiations. However, a proposal from Warner would see exhibitors receiving a cut of VOD revenues, if they agree to a narrowing of the theatrical release window.
Getting the theaters on board will indeed face headwinds and it's important to note that these plans are reportedly very early on in the negotiating process. Still, this only makes sense. The job of moviemakers is to give the public movies the way they want them. The job of theaters is to create an experience that makes people want to go to the theater. It can't only be the movie itself. The movie is the studio's job. It has to be the theater attracting viewers. If it isn't, that's on the theater companies, not the studios.
Still, it's frustrating that even these baby steps are facing so much pushback, because what the studios should actually do is much more severe than a 33% cut in the windows. There's a joke in atheist circles that goes like this: first there was polytheism, then there was monotheism, and they're getting closer to the right number all the time. This joke ports nicely to the case of release windows, where the best number available is zero windows at all. With that kind of innovation being too much to hope for from entrenched industries, let's at least hope that some of the more forward-thinking studios can convince the one studio that you already know is against this whole idea.
While the rest of the major studios are keen to move forward, Disney is reported to be against the proposal. For a company that came up with the artificial restrictions embodied in the Disney Vault, for example, that probably won’t come as too much of a surprise.
In which case I would kindly ask Disney to stop bitching about piracy. The other studios are at least trying something new instead of pushing the same doomsday talking points.
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Filed Under: hollywood, movie windows, movies, piracy, theaters
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One step forward, one step back
... six of the seven biggest Hollywood studios are considering plans to allow new movies to be delivered via VOD into the living room between 30 and 45 days after launch for around $30. Fox and Warner are said to favor this structure but other plans are also floating around. Universal are reported to be pushing for a VOD release less than three weeks after launch, with Warner Bros. suggesting a shorter 17-day delay but with a larger $50 rental price.
I can't help but think that even in trying to decrease the delay between theaters and home viewing they're shooting themselves in the foot by pricing it so incredibly high. You can buy a new release for $20, so getting people to pay $30 or $50 is going to be a hard sell, especially considering how many restrictions they're likely to try and slap on the rental in 'anti-infringement' features.
I can understand why they might be thinking of pricing it that high, a few people going to the theater can easily reach that sort of cost so why shouldn't it be the same for home viewing, but availability is only part of the equation when trying to convince people to buy, you also have to consider ease of access and price. Price it too high and the other two factors decrease in importance as most people consider it just too expensive for what they're getting, undercutting the entire purpose behind shrinking release windows.
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#FakeProgress
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Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
That's your ONLY reason for this re-write from last week. No other is even implied here, no suggestion that it'd (somehow, magically, despite the ensuing piracy) optimize studio income, just the shameless hope that creators will be forced to or foolish enough to shorten your wait -- to zero days.
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Re: #FakeProgress
It's possible that they're figuring the price on the basis of how much the average theater takes in from BOTH tickets AND drinks/snacks, and setting it this way so that the theaters don't panic about "lost audiences." In their eyes, that's all they have to do.
OTOH, it'll still be cheaper to pirate the film and make your own popcorn.
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@"piracy of a film is a sort of market study" -- of non-paying couch potatoes.
You actually believe that the studios are just being stupid besides mean to you, that no one in charge has ever looked at it your enlightened way. Sheesh.
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Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
Imagine a world where a film only needs a single marketing run to cover every possible release — theatrical, DVD/Blu-ray, digital video. Imagine how much money that would save studios in the long run. That is a benefit of a non-existent release window.
Imagine a world where a film could be released in theatres and on home video (physical and digital) at the same time. Rather than limiting consumer choice to either “theatres” or “piracy”, consumers would have the extra option of “licensing” the home video release and watching it on their own terms. That is a benefit of a non-existent release window.
Imagine a world where a simultaneous cross-platform release could negate or drive down piracy. As this site has said before, legal and convenient (as well as fairly priced) is the easiest way to push people away from piracy and toward legal options. That is a benefit of a non-existent release window.
Maybe there will be more piracy of a film if it received a digital release at the same time as the theatrical. Then again, if the studios think people will pay thirty fucking dollars for a mere “license” to a film — a license that could be revoked at any time or made worthless by a downed DRM server — piracy will remain an “unfixable” problem for the studios.
There are more benefits to a non-existent release window than there are drawbacks. Some of those benefits are even on the “supply side” of the chain. Society is changing, and so is how society experiences films and television shows (can we even call them “television shows” if they are on Netflix?). Theatres will still have a place in society, but making them the first and only option for consumers to view new movies is not going to help theatres (and movie studio profits) survive. And it will damn sure not marginalise the issue of piracy.
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$50 price? That seem unrealistic
A $50 price range is much different. I would only consider it if I invited a huge group of friends over to view as well. And it would have to be an excellent movie. At $50 I'm not willing to take a risk.
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Re: $50 price? That seem unrealistic
This is how a lot of MMA, boxing, and pro wrestling fans viewed PPV costs at the height of that system’s popularity: Throw a party of sorts, split the costs between everyone there, and watch the show. Ten friends paying five dollars each is a far better idea than one person paying the full fifty.
To a movie studio, that would be anathema. “How dare these people only pay part-price for the right to watch our movies!” they might yell in a boardroom. There would be all kinds of restrictions and issues pushed onto these “licensed rentals” to make them not worth the cost.
And that does not even get into the subjective nature of whether a film (or a PPV) might be “good” or “bad” and the risks involved with paying for something you might later regret having paid for.
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Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
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It comes from the dual-customer nature of movies
It's all well and good for this website to propose studios go to 0-day and tell theaters "Getting asses in your seats vs. their living room is your problem now", but in the real world, a theater is not going to take that lying down, and will, naturally, prefer to show and market releases by studios that have more favorable terms.
It may be hard for the editors of this website to believe, but studios have more on their minds than just piracy. (Although given that most new-release piracy consists of blurry copies of somebody pointing a camera at the screen, I agree that it's not really much of a threat.)
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It will be limited in so many wonderful ways because piracy.
They will then look confused when people aren't using the service in droves, completely missing the point that customers are tired of being treated worse than pirates.
Nice idea... its gonna bomb because they are still much to obsessed with control.
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Re: It comes from the dual-customer nature of movies
But that has always been a theatre’s problem. The whole draw of a theatre is not to watch a movie, but to watch a movie in a social setting. If a theatre cannot convince people to do that, it is not the fault of piracy — it is the fault of that theatre for not finding a way to make the theatre-going experience worth a consumer’s time and money.
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Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
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Re: @"piracy of a film is a sort of market study" -- of non-paying couch potatoes.
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Re: @"piracy of a film is a sort of market study" -- of non-paying couch potatoes.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
I think they're called "serialised video content" now.
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Re:
Now, everything's about the opening weekend. They select the date before the script's finished, market it before the effects are finished, and if it underperforms on the first day it's already being removed from the next week's schedule before Sunday's screenings are over.
So, don't get to see the movie on opening weekend? If it wasn't an instant success and you don't live in a major city, you might have no option to watch the film legally until it's released on DVD, which might be months. Not everyone can/will revolve their schedules around movie release windows, so I think that this combination of all-or-nothing openings, quick turnaround and long gaps between formats is what's caused a lot of their problems.
Reducing that gap will help, as will offering an interim solution, but this plan won't be enough on its own if they don't recognise the other factors.
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Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
Yeah, i'd love to be able to pay to watch at home on the day of release, I'd watch more than I do now because of the expense and hassle of getting to a cinema.
Now, if you could only stop lying about the pirates wanting it for free on that day (which they already do - sometimes BEFORE release), then we'd be on to something. Unfortunately, you have to lie to shill for an industry that's causing it's own problems.
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Re: Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
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"
They know the outcome already, master plan and all.
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Re: Re: Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
Well, “serial” works, but “video content” is far too clunky. There has to be a better term.
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Who said anyhthing about piracy?
This is all about theaters giving preferential treatment to studios that offer them better terms. Which is certainly their right, and would be a big problem for studios going 0-day. (Tent-pole blockbuster franchises would be okay, but the lion's share of movies are NOT blockbusters, and very much need the support of theaters to be profitable. We certainly don't need Hollywood becoming even MORE reliant on cookie-cutter sure-thing franchise movies.)
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staggered regional releases
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Re: Who said anyhthing about piracy?
Who cares what Hollywood does, now that a film producer has other ways of getting a film into the eyes and ears of an audience. Behaving like Luddites and resisting changes to how the markets work is a way of going broke slowly or quickly depending aon how fast you are made irrelevant.
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Re: #FakeProgress
This is the same industry which also believed consumer would shell out $100+ for a movie when they launched on VHS, nearly 12 years after the Betamax loss.
When they realize customers aren't going to pay this atrocious amount (falsely believing everyone still groups on the family couch to watch shows), they'll either whine to Congress we didn't "want" it or they'll reduce the price.
Money does stupid things to people.
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Re: Re: $50 price? That seem unrealistic
https://phys.org/news/2012-11-microsoft-patent-technology-users-streamed.html
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Re: staggered regional releases
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$30, $50, $70... GO!
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Re: Re: $50 price? That seem unrealistic
Until, of course, they put the DVD on sale at Wal-Mart for $9.99. Then an entire family can watch the movie for less than the price of 1 person seeing it in the theater.
Then again, the studio probably figures that they've made all their money from the movie and DVD sales are a bonus.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Same old wish entirely ignoring that so soon as one digital version is out it's totally pirated.
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