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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Netflix Boss Suggest How To Save Movies
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-29-2013 03:50 PM
Ted Sarandos's attack on theater owners, claiming they're "stifling innovation" or that they'll "kill movies," is nothing more than a short-sighted ploy aimed at boosting Netflix' stock prices. Hollywood movie distributors and their global media parent companies would be crazy to follow Sarandos' advice.
We all know "day and date" simultaneous release in movie theaters and on home video (or "premium VOD") would be a very bad thing for commercial movie theaters. I believe it would be fatal for much of the theater business. Theaters would be far from the only victim. The destruction would spread across the rest of the entertainment industry like a domino effect. The consequences would spread farther into the electronics industry.
quote: Frank Cox
I once read a comment somewhere (maybe here?), "A movie company without theatres is just a television company without a channel."
I've said something along those lines before. If there were no movie theaters the movie studios would be reduced to something like that.
There's already lots of movies that are released direct to DVD because they're not good enough to play in theaters. Commercial movie theaters let the legit movies distinguish themselves from all the direct to DVD junk. Without theaters that boundary no longer would exist. Funding on big movie productions would plummet. The money people would get a lot more conservative with chances they're willing to take on funding new content. They're not going to put $100 million into a 2 hour movie made for direct to DVD release. Same thing goes for the big marketing budgets. DVD/Blu-ray sales on their new home viewing only projects wouldn't be nearly as good as the theatrical release stuff. The biggest names in acting, directing, etc. would flee to premium cable or even Broadway. The traditional movie distributor/studio would shrink and then get swallowed up by its parent company's cable TV networks.
The cable networks would also suffer. Premium channels and regular networks like AMC, TNT, etc. all depend heavily on Hollywood movie content to fill their programming blocks. If all the new content went to low budget, made for home only junk, viewer ratings would go into the toilet. The networks would grow even more dependent on crap like reality TV than they already are now.
This market contagion would spread into electronics hardware sales. Who is going to bother buying a 70" flat screen TV or new surround sound system just to watch the latest Cuba Gooding Jr. direct to DVD release? Play movies on a new iPad? Why bother if all the movies are low budget made for TV crap?
quote: Geoff Jones
What if local cinemas had regular showings of things that are normally on TV?
People would stay away in droves unless it was something the theater was able to run exclusively -as in something not available in the home.
quote: Scott Jentsch
Take a look at original programming on cable for an example. Eight years ago, who would have guessed that AMC would have garnered the popularity it has gotten with Mad Men, The Walking Dead, and Breaking Bad? How about HBO and Showtime with their original programming?
I think that's more of a statement of how bland, predictable, re-done, regurgitated, etc. traditional Hollywood movies have become. The 2 hour Hollywood movie story telling model is already pretty limited. And the limitations have grown far worse with the "let's sell the same familiar idea over and over again" thing being dictated by Wall Street.
Cable TV, particularly premium cable, is already outdoing Hollywood movies in terms of producing edgy, new & not so predictable content. Day and date theatrical/VOD release would make matters for the traditional movie industry far worse. It would elevate premium cable TV series, such as Game of Thrones for example, into top tier status above traditional Hollywood movies.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-30-2013 11:02 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
That is true, and it is partly because TV production by its very nature is much cheaper. It's easy to be more free with your content when you're not risking 200 million dollars or more.
TV has its advantages and disadvantages.
The obvious disadvantages: lower budgets and shorter production schedules. Productions don't have the time or money to create epic scale action set pieces. However, new technology has greatly improved creative abilities. The "digital backlot" technique is used on many TV shows.
The advantages: series TV isn't constrained by the 2 hour story telling limit imposed on movies. Most TV shows don't have an "A-list" name above the title actor hogging up a big chunk of the production budget. TV shows have more freedom with regard to how happy or unhappy a storyline resolves itself. Hollywood movies are too predictable in how nearly all have to have completely rosy endings (and hence a lot less dramatic suspense).
Premium cable TV series can do a lot more in terms of pushing limits with sex, violence and other adult-oriented content than Hollywood movies for theaters. I regularly see things on cable that would get a Hollywood movie an NC-17 rating if it included the same thing. I'm not talking hardcore porn. The MPAA lords itself over movie studios, particularly independents, greatly limiting what boundaries can be pushed. This is especially true with sexual content.
quote: Ron Curran
The cost of distributing movies to cinemas is no longer a significant factor. More screens can now be reached for very few dollars. So there is no need to look at new ways to strangle theatrical.
I'm sure the movie distributors are saving a pretty serious amount of money versus what they were spending 10 years ago. Of course, they would be very resistant to show the savings in a truthful manner in their books. The accounting departments of movie studios are masters of the "rolling break even."
Obviously studios are saving millions of dollars with every movie release by not having to order and ship thousands of 35mm film prints. Movie studios and theaters are increasingly connected via computer. There has to be some kind of savings in terms of "efficiency" by automating certain booking tasks.
Advertising still costs a lot of money. The bulk of a movie's ad campaign budget is obviously going into TV. I don't know if studios are reducing TV commercial ad buys. TV advertising doesn't have the value it did 20 or 30 years ago. Audiences are increasingly split between more channels. In 1980, a network needed at least an average 21 share of the evening Nielsen ratings to win the week. Today a network can win with less than a 10 share. So many people have DVRs and simply skip past TV commercials. More are watching shows online and not seeing local commercials.
Newspaper advertising has far less value since circulation numbers have plummeted for most newspapers. Here in Lawton I've seen movie ads and theater directory ads reduced to microscopic size or even eliminated most days. Most people read news online the same day the news happens. More are looking up showtimes online. I can't remember the last time I looked in a newspaper to see what time a movie was playing. It could be 10 years or more.
That's putting the studio's marketing muscle more and more online. But even there the studios aren't doing as much as they did 10 years ago. Back in the late 1990s and into the 2000s most movie releases had a big, Flash-driven web site along with all the banner advertising at so many other web sites. Today, a movie release might have a Facebook page or Twitter handle and a few video clips & trailers thrown up on YouTube & Apple's trailer park.
So when I hear "$100 million marketing campaign" I have to wonder how the studio is spending that $100 million. It makes me wonder if they're just pulling an accounting trick to hide profits.
quote: Ron Curran
The success of new DCPs of older titles is proving that quality product has an extended life when carefully handled.
You also have to have the right kind of theater in the right kind of market, typically big city arts district or big college campus kind of market.
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