BigShinyThing

Hot on the heels of the news that a possible new TV show won’t be distributed via television, today sees a movie released simultaneously in cinemas and on cable, heralding a threat to the traditional $25 billion-plus worldwide ‘theatrical window’ during which first-run films are only screened at cinemas.

Technology Review has the story:

Today is the release date for Bubble, a new film directed by Soderbergh and released by HDNET Films, an upstart film company cofounded by Mark Cuban. Setting Bubble apart [...] is that the film will be available in cinemas and on the HDNET cable channel on the same day. What’s more, just four days later, it will be out on DVD. In other words: there will be no “window” between its theatrical release and its availability for home viewing.

The gap between theatrical release and viewership on cable and home video sales has been shrinking steadily for some time. In 1993, the average time between theatrical debut and availability on video was 191 days. By 2003, it had shrunk to 155. Occasionally, poor-performing titles will be rushed to DVD, to capture any remaining interest in them; but Bubble’s release is the first time a film is set for both a theatrical and cable television release.

Cinema owners don’t share Hollywood’s enthusiasm for quick DVD and cable releases as a cure for current the slump in film revenues, however. Quoted in The Hollywood Reporter in August 2005, National Association of Theatre Owners president John Fithian rebuked a call for compressed windows from soon-to-be Disney CEO Robert Iger thus:

(Iger) should know that Hollywood studios would be merely one shriveled vendor among many in that new world of movies-as-commodities-only.

This rather self-defeating view — that given instant availability of DVD or online delivery, people will simply stop gong to cinemas — has sparked a passionate riposte from HDNET’s Mark Cuban asking ‘just what business are the cinemas really in?’:

How sad is it when the President of the National Assoc of Theater Owners doesn’t think his members can create a better movie going experience than what we can see in our houses and apartments ?

Guess what John, I can whip up a mean steak, but I still like to go to restaurants. Because I enjoy it. I enjoy getting out of the house with family, friends, who ever.

Every single Mavs [basketball] game is on TV. It wasnt that long ago that some people in the sports business thought that having games on TV would reduce attendance. After all, why go to the game when you can watch it for free on TV ? Then someone decided to do some research and as it turns out, the more games you broadcast on TV, the more people who go to your games. At the NBA, when we do our analysis to determine the revenue opportunity in any given market, the number of games broadcast is one of the criteria analyzed.

He’s got a point: surely the experience of the cinema, is — or should be — about more than the films? Maybe it’s time for the multiplex chains to start re-examination of their ‘pack em in’ strategy and start looking at why people go out to see films in the first place…