Thursday, March 23, 2017

Studios Flirt With Offering Movies Early in Home for $30

I'm not saying that this idea, which coincidentally has been brought up every few years for the past 15 years, isn't never going to happen but...it's never going to happen. Why? First of all, movie theaters would boycott. Second of all, most people over the age of 30 would simply skip theaters altogether, leading back to reason one. Finally, there is no way Hollywood would allow you to rent a movie for $30 and invite your friends over to watch it.

However, the companies, particularly Fox and Warner Bros., are showing greater flexibility about timing. Initially, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara had kicked off negotiations with exhibitors by offering to cut them in on a percentage of digital revenues if they agreed to let them debut films on-demand for $50 a rental some 17 days after they opened. Currently, most major movies are only made available to rent some 90 days after their release. Some studios offer films for sale electronically roughly 70 days after their bow in theaters.