Big Hollywood Directors Seem To Think People Will Actually Pay $30 To Watch Movies At Home

from the reality-calling... dept

We still can't figure out why anyone is "worried" about Hollywood's silly plan to offer $30 video-on-demand rentals 10 weeks after films are in the theaters. Yet, theater owners who are effectively admitting that their service sucks are all complaining and now a bunch of big Hollywood directors are joining them. James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Robert Zemeckis, Michael Mann, Kathryn Bigelow and many others have apparently written a letter to the studios protesting the plan. Do they not yet realize that very few people are likely to pay $30 to watch these movies? And their basic argument doesn't make any sense: they say this is a threat to theaters (it's not) and that this will harm the movie industry as a whole (it won't).

And, as stupid as $30 movies at home are, what this really foreshadows is the ridiculous levels to which the industry will go to block the real innovation that the industry needs: day and date release on all formats on the same day. If they're so scared of massively overpriced video at home ten weeks after the theater debut, you can bet they'll go absolutely ballistic when anyone tries to release video on demand and in the theater at the same time.

It seems that, once again, we have people focusing on the "tradition" of the way things were done, rather than actually providing what consumers want. How many times does this need to happen before industry folks realize this doesn't work?

Filed Under: directors, james cameron, kathryn bigelow, michael mann, movies, peter jackson, robert zemeckis, video on demand