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Topic: Timeframes on DVD releases

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-21-2005 11:19 PM

The news/entertainment media is party at fault for the short shelf life of movies. They've helped play up the bullshit hype on opening weekend numbers. The movie studios need all that opening weekend earnings hype because total earnings figures at the box office mean very little to most people anymore.

$100 million: who cares? $200 million: routine. $300 million: getting to be routine. The figures don't mean shit when a forgettable sequel like "Shrek 2" can jump into the top 5 money makers of all time list -and be hyped as "the greatest comedy of all time." Yeah. Bullshit.

Opening weekend hype has taken over. And it's bad to the point we're hearing news personalities on a Monday morning say, "the biggest opening ever for the second weekend in April!"

It gets worse.

Lately the hype has really been shifting to daily gross figures. With our short attention spans, we can't patiently wait until Monday morning to find out who reigned supreme over the box office (even though the press projects this figure now early Sunday). Some weekends don't begin before news people are projecting how a film will do based on its Wednesday opening numbers.

Some of this absurdity can be tempered if Hollywood would just do the sensible thing and report actual attendance figures. They need to count the actual number of tickets sold. How many asses were planted in those seats?

It can now take as little as 10 million tickets, or even less, for a film to hit the $100 million mark. However, if a movie sold 50 million tickets, that would be an honest hit regardless of the era in which it was released. Has any movie ever crossed the 100 million tickets sold mark?

I think counting actual tickets sold as a measure of success would put more pressure on a movie to do well for a sustained period in theaters. I think it is easier for people to remember a figure like 25 million tickets sold than a gross of $237 million. Actual units sold tranlates to that many people experiencing the show. It's a more humanized statistic.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-22-2005 12:57 AM

quote: Lyle Romer
I'm willing to bet that when the DVD's start coming out for this slump, those DVD's will not sell or rent as well as the DVD's that resulted from the same release period last year.

That's already happening. DVD sales from April were down 7% compared to April of last year. A similar drop was expected in May. (This is from a NATO bulletin.)

Could DVD be peaking? I know I've pretty much reached the end of my list of old movies I want to own, and I haven't seen a new movie in a long time that I've wanted to see more than once. "Finding Nemo" and "School of Rock" are the two newest movie titles I own. I probably have more disks of "classic TV" than I do of movies.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-22-2005 10:46 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
I know I've pretty much reached the end of my list of old movies I want to own, and I haven't seen a new movie in a long time that I've wanted to see more than once. "Finding Nemo" and "School of Rock" are the two newest movie titles I own. I probably have more disks of "classic TV" than I do of movies.

Of course, they can sell you everything again when HD-DVD versions are released!

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