In what is likely to be one of the biggest experiments by Hollywood in recent years, 24 films will be released in theaters, cable and DVDs at the same time in 2006. The move, which will be announced by IFC Entertainment at the Sundance Film Festival this week, aims at narrowing the gap between a film's release in the theaters and on DVD to cash in on the booming home entertainment market.
“So much great film has fallen by the wayside. The studios are collapsing the window between the theatrical release and the DVD. We're taking that one step further,” said Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Entertainment.
The first such film to be released simultaneously would be Steven Soderbergh's
Bubble, a low-budget doll factory-based murder mystery produced by 2929 Entertainment, a company owned by Internet entrepreneurs Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner.
Bubble will open on Friday at all the outlets of Landmark Theaters and will also be aired on HDNet satellite channel, both of which are owned by Cuban. The DVD of the film will be released next Tuesday.
With the advent of gadgets like iPod, both the film and music industries are becoming more receptive to making music and films available for home viewing. While major studios have fought shy of publicly supporting the change, they have agreed that the gap between a film's release in theaters and on DVD needs to be shortened. “My sense is that there's been a real ground change. People are now saying, 'You know what? We should experiment',” Wagner said.
Among others that would see simultaneous releases, which in industry jargon are called 'day and date' releases, are
CSA: The Confederate States of America,
I Am a Sex Addict, and
American Gun. While
CSA: The Confederate States of America is a documentary type drama about the United States had the South won the Civil War,
I Am A Sex Addict takes a comical look at the travails of a man who has a prostitutes addiction. The last deals with the growth of weapons in the United States.
The experiment might work, given that only 10 per cent of the entire American population watches movies on the big screen on a regular basis. Independent filmmakers are also seeing it as a chance to bring non-commercial films to the viewers. “Otherwise, it's an idea that wouldn't have seen the light of day. I'm convinced that five years from now, everything is going to go out like this,” Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh said of
Bubble.
While most big studios have kept quiet about the idea, Walt Disney has expressed interest in 'day and date' releases. “We have to stay focused as an industry on the consumer, and what changing technology is doing to increase options. We want to look to experimentation in terms of how we can improve the consumer experience,” Tom Staggs, chief financial officer of Disney had said earlier in the week.
But Brian Andriotti of Music Box Theater in Chicago isn't too happy with the development. “The idea gives us great concern. We don't have other sources of revenue to fall back on. We make our living through exhibiting films on a first-run basis. If this system takes hold, it would kill the small independent exhibitor,” he said. The theater regularly screens independent and foreign films.
Agrees industry expert David Dinerstein. “It's absolutely imperative to the film business as we know it to not have windows that are 'day and date'. I think they'll meet with resistance from exhibitors along the way, with the exception of the independent chains,” he opined.
But Soderbergh argued back with, “…Audiences are skipping the experience anyway. We're not saying all movies should be released in different formats simultaneously, but the truth is, technology has taken away a lot of the control over that. You can walk down a street in New York and find someone selling a pirated copy of
Ocean's Twelve on the day it comes out. I've talked to people at Warner Bros who would like to release some films on the same day they're released in China, where they don't enforce our copyright laws. Otherwise, you're just giving the market to the bandits.”
Producer Steve Tisch summed it up best. “I think the industry will resist and resist some more, and then slowly embrace it,” he said of the transition.
