I have commented on digital distribution before but I feel that I need to reexamine the topic after the controversy that surrounded the new film, Tower Heist. The film is directed by Brett Ratner, stars Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller and is about “hard working guys finding out they've fallen victim to a wealthy business man's Ponzi scheme, so they conspire to rob his high-rise residence.” The controversy started when Universal, wanting to test their new experimental distribution model, decided to release the picture to video on demand only after three weeks of being in theaters for a price of $60. They wanted to test to see who would pay the price for the comfort of seeing the movie at home.
Personally every movie I have gone to since the beginning of this year has been a bad experience. It seems that this current generation of moviegoers does not understand how to go to a movie. They are rude, inconsiderate, and their attention spans are short lived. Their cell phones appear to be more entertaining than the movie they paid $12 to see. I have had to deal with people talking on their phones and constantly checking their Facebook and text messages throughout the film and with phone’s big screens these days those sort of activities do not go unnoticed to the other theater patrons. As a film lover I cannot stand being taken out of the film’s story because a blinding light keeps shining in my face every five seconds. Do I want theaters to become obsolete because I would pay for the VOD service in order to not have to put up with that? No, I do want theaters to become more proactive and stop blaming the studios. Put rules in place and monitor that they are followed so that everyone can have the movie experience the filmmakers wished them to have.
Back to the news – Universal pulled the plan after theater owners threatened to not play the picture at all in their theaters. Universal realized that they would lose a huge amount of the gross profit if they were to go through with this plan. My question to the studio is why plan to follow through with that experiment during the holiday season when theaters are packed with other choices for moviegoers? This gave the theater owners the leverage they needed to not just threaten but actually not have to show the film because their bottom line wouldn’t depend on it. Why do it with a film that is sure to tank at the box office anyway? Lastly, why start out with such a high model? $60 to the consumer is not a logical number in their mind. To them $60 is an amount they would gladly pay to the theater for six tickets because in their mind $10 per person, plus the cost of getting there and concessions equals an experience. $60 at home does not equal out to $10 per person because those same six people would be watching it at home, not spending the time to get ready and go anywhere, not buying extra concessions. Lastly because it feels like paying $60 for a film instead of $10 per person is a very steep number. Now if they were to start out with $30 for the VOD service to the same family of six that would mean that they get to see the same film for half the price of going to the theater and now the time, gas, or concessions are not factored into the experience as rational costs but irrational costs when they realize their out of pocket expense doubles.
Do theater owners have something to fear from VOD service? I would say no, that the two can go hand and hand much in the same way that television and radio went hand in hand when the advent of television was believed to be the extinction of radio. What I believe they do have to fear is that studios are part of a conglomerate who own the VOD channels and want something enticing to attract consumers as a way to increase their own bottom line. There needs to be a deal soon to bring peace to both parties because they could end up killing themselves in the act. Movie patrons could soon find that downloading high quality films from illegal sites is far easier and cost friendly than paying money to VOD or to theaters.
