Hollywood is baffled. DVD sales are down. 18%, which is significant. How could this be the bewildered industry wonders? Especially since boxoffice figures are up 10%.Is it the economy?
Do people like to “experience” entertainment so that’s why they like actually going to movies or concerts?
Is Netflix to blame? Or movies on demand?
The Writers Guild Strike? (Hollywood believes the WGA is the cause for all crises including Global Warming and the swine flu.)
So why are studios in such a panic if more people are going to the cineplex? Because they make windfall profits on DVD sales. And here’s the best part – they don’t have to account for them!
Boxoffice numbers are made public almost immediately, but Hollywood can easily hide the income totals derived from DVD sales. It’s the same reason the Mafia was so into the juke box business. Who’s to say how many coins were dropped into those slots? All the better to skim, and in the case of Hollywood, not pay proper royalties to writers, directors, and actors.
Does your heart break for the major studios yet?
And here’s the real terrifying thing for them – bad movies are the ones that are no longer selling.
In years past even the poorly reviewed boxoffice flops would bring in DVD bucks. Kevin Costner films left the shelves. But a curious thing has happened. People stopped buying crap. Even though they both did well theatrically, IRON MAN had brisk DVD sales while the new Indiana Jones RAIDERS OF THE LOST AARP tanked. HANCOCK flopped while WALL-E flourished. Both had nice boxoffice paydays.
You can see why the moguls are popping Lexapro out of Pez dispensers. Gone is their margin for error. Now they must – God forbid – make GOOD movies. And the problem here is that they have no clue how to do that. They can’t just hedge their bets anymore by greenlighting expensive Raider sequels or casting Will Smith.
Art house films aren’t doing well either but that shouldn’t be a surprise. You don’t buy Blu-Ray players and build tricked-out home entertainment centers to watch THE READER in surround sound.
At first it was real exciting to own DVD’s. Imagine, having your favorite films right there in your home! You can watch VOLUNTEERS anytime you want! But eventually the novelty wore off. I think it was the release of SPEED RACER that pushed the public over the edge.
So what does Tinsel Town do? Get even more cautious and gravitate even more towards safe commercial fare (MARLEY AND ME AND SOMEONE ELSE?). Still no guarantee. They could make better movies but that’s just crazy talk so let’s move on. No, I think Hollywood will find a solution.
They’ll just invent a new format. That’ll give them ten good years before people stop buying KUNG FU PANDA 9 and HD mini-chip sales drop 18%. But by then they’ll all be in Hawaii and it will be your problem. Covet that copy of MANNEQUIN 2. It may someday be obsolete.
35 comments :
I do think that people started realizing owning a copy of a terrible movie doesn't make the movie any better. Plus - I know I've got a nice collection of decent movies on tape, some more on DVD, and am pretty sure I'll end up with some on Blu Ray once we get a Blu Ray player. How many more obsolete formats do they expect us to continue to buy? I know, I really don't need an answer - they want us to buy all of them.
Just before the WGA strike there was an absolutely brilliant bit on Saturday Night Live about the way the studios figure the profit on DVDs. I was laughing so hard, but I also realized that it was probably so close to the truth.
Movies on demand, Netflix, online downloads, and pirated movies are most likely all taking large shares of the DVD empire. I say good riddance. DVDs scratch and wear out WAY too easily. They were intitially advertised to last longer than VHSs, but I now know that would only be if you had an airlock safe and an armed gaurd if God-forbid a speck of dust threatened to cause The Lord of the Rings to skip. Which it has.
I personally prefer VHSs. DVDs have the small advantage of scene selection and special features.
And here I thought Hollywood blamed Christians for global warming and swine flu.
"the new Indiana Jones RAIDERS OF THE LOST AARP"
Funny! (And yes, what a dreadful movie that was...)
They've reaped what they sowed after turning DVDs into a cash machine. I bought The Rockford Files on DVD (after a long wait for them to come out), and the product was terrible -- hardly any extras, summaries that were obviously written by the marketing intern, no commentaries. They just turned a quick buck. If they'd try harder (read: "at all") to make a good product, maybe people would stick with them.
I wonder how TV Series dvd sales are doing in comparison to films? I rarely watch movies on DVD anymore, but have found many a great tv show that I can barrel through on dvd. Some serials are simply made for the format.
When you have everything at your fingertips, when the entire entertainment world is your buffet, it's, to put it bluntly, boring.
It doesn't matter how great the movie, too much choice is too much choice.
How many times have you had your ipod on shuffle and clicked to the next track in shuffle, waiting to get to that perfect tune? Only to arrive at your destination having heard, at best, one complete song?
when you can own everything, what is special? And when the glut of product is so overwhelming who has time to watch the movies they've purchased?
I think the moment when someone looks at their DVD case and realizes that they have a bunch that might not even be out of the shrinkwrap, then it's time to stop with the conspicuous consumption.
Maybe it'll be good for the Hollywood idiots to feel at least a portion of the contempt they've shown for the public the last twenty years or so. For every fantastic Star Trek, we have to sludge through a hundred Cadillac Records or Fly Me To The Moons.
Movies are always up during hard times. It's the one thing they haven't f**ked up yet, the peace of watching anything in the dark, with other humans, no interuptions, and a huge vat of popcorn. But with the commercials creeping in, how long before they actually stop the flick to remind you your Johnson's too small?
Sorry for the bitterness, but I enjoy anything that causes that town pain.
Speed Racer was actually a pretty good movie, and I've enjoyed watching it a couple of times (on DVD) since it's release. Not a good choice for viewers with epilepsy, admittedly, but still a fun, family-friendly movie.
not to go off topic, but christ almighty Cadillac Records was bad. How can you have a great true story , great music , good actors, and still end up with something so unwatchable? I am a huge fan of the musicians portrayed in the film and an avid movie watcher and I couldn't get through the damn thing.
Blu Ray took to long to win the format battle.
Streaming HD movies is the next big format.
"Duffy said...
I personally prefer VHSs. DVDs have the small advantage of scene selection and special features."
That and the VASTLY better picture quality. And scene selection is a HUGE advantage, as is no rewinding.
And I find that if I put my DVDs away in their cases and back on the shelf when I'm done with them, they don't get damaged. Stop using yours for Frisbees and they'll last longer. As for that speck of dust on your LORD OF THE RINGS disc, you can wash them, you know, or even just dust them.
But I found the joy of collecting movies (Something I dreamed of as a boy, when the most I could hope for was to buy 16mm prints) over 20 years ago, when I began collecting VHS copies.
"Allen L. said...
When you have everything at your fingertips, when the entire entertainment world is your buffet, it's, to put it bluntly, boring. It doesn't matter how great the movie, too much choice is too much choice."
Sorry, that concept is utterly lost on me. There's no such thing as too much choice. But there sure as hell is such a thing as too little choice.
The real trick is learning to differentiate between a movie you want to see once, which is what Netflix is for, and something you want to watch repeatedly, which is what buying movies is for.
"Raiders of the Lost AARP"
A perfect example of my point two columns back, that sometimes two brilliant minds will come up with the same joke independantly, that it's not always a steal, because Tallulah used "Raiders of the Lost AARP" several times over on her blog back when the film came out a year ago.
Great Minds and all that.
"Allen L. said...
How many times have you had your ipod on shuffle and clicked to the next track in shuffle, waiting to get to that perfect tune? Only to arrive at your destination having heard, at best, one complete song?"
Well actually never. Really. Never. You're one of those people I once heard described as "not interested in what's on, only in what ELSE is on." Have you sought professional help for your attention deficit disorder?
"when you can own everything, what is special?"
The ones I chose to buy are the special ones. Just because you CAN buy everything is no reason to do so.
"I think the moment when someone looks at their DVD case and realizes that they have a bunch that might not even be out of the shrinkwrap, then it's time to stop with the conspicuous consumption."
Probably, but of the 200 or 300 DVDs in my home, none are still in shrink wrap, although maybe a third of them have only been watched once, while maybe a quarter of them have been viewed more than three times.
And how is it "conspicuous consumption"? Are you keeping yours outdoors for the neighbors to see? A car or a house is conspicuous consumption. My DVDs, my easily 1000 older VHS tapes, and my hundreds of books are all seen only by guests, work folks like the exterminator or the cable guy, and burglars.
In any event, no one holds a gun on you to buy DVDs. If you don't like owning them, throw them out. If you've got any really good stuff, give them to me.
To show you how deranged I am, I built a tricked out home theatre to watch Buster Keaton.
I may have a future in this business.
The HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray mudfight couldn't have possibly helped...at first people didn't know which bandwagon to jump, and after BR won ("no mas, no mas") the population at large wasn't so sure that BR would replace DVD...many (me included) are pretty sure that BR is actually the replacement for laserdisc.
Lastly, DVD sales of clunker films are an excellent vehicle for shuffling profits around and murkying up the waters -- I know, as my old man was an auditor for a Major Auditing Firm.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my personal DVD viewership declined because one of my dogs ate my DVD player.
Seriously. Well, at least the pop-out tray thing. I think the two pups were chasing each other around the house while I was at work. One of them bumped the DVD player Eject button. The drawer and tray popped out and my dog decided she was under attack. Death to the tray! She showed it who's boss. There were little pieces of plastic scattered around the living room when I got home.
I agree with D. McEwan. I own roughly 300 DVDs and not one of them is still in the shrink wrap. I have maybe 2 that I haven't watched yet but they'll get watched.
I don't have many issues with them "wearing out" or getting scratched. I've watched my Frasier and Cheers DVDs numerous and in some cases probably hundreds of times and they are perfectly fine.
Yes, occasionally a disc gets damaged but I'd say I had far more VHS tapes get chewed up in a machine.
And the picture quality of even a regular DVD (as opposed to HD or BR) is far, far better than most VHS tapes.
I love my DVD collection and there is absolutely no such thing as "too much choice" when it comes to movies or especially TV shows. In fact, with TV shows, there are not enough TV shows! I want more Murphy Brown damn't!
As for why sales are down, I do think it's more a matter of people downloading things rather than buying them. The majority of people buying DVDs are probably my age (30-50)whereas the younger set just nabs it online.
Aw man don't remind me about Hancock. That movie is the poster child for Hollywood tragedies. If they had filmed the screenplay as it was originally written we'd probably all own it on DVD.
I still have ALL Disney animated movies on VHS until they stopped making VHS. I can't figure out what to do with them, but my $39 VHS player works. The only advantage to DVD is the ability to fast forward to start the damn movie. Having a 3 year old wait for the commercials, etc. with the FF blocked on my DVD player really sucks.
I am not a collector of movies, but when I'm cruising on the cable I always have to stop and finish watching Apollo 13, Godfather, and a handful of other movies. I don't know why, but I would never think to pull out a movie to watch. I guess that is why I'm not a collector of non-kids movies!
My kids on the other hand can watch Toy Story every day for a month.
Two words for the drop; Bit Torrent...I realize you're old and don't know what that is, but anyone under 35 with a computer probably gets most of their entertainment from Mininova or Pirate Bay. It's gotten as easy as downloading music.
As for the fragile DVD comments...I had one DVD that after about one year just refused to play. A quick email to the company that released the it, and they agreed to replace it, if I sent them the defective disc.
Ken, here's have a question for Friday. Recently, we had a discussion at work about the P.A. announcements in M*A*S*H, and someone asked who the character was that made them as it seemed Radar wasn't the guy on the mic. We couldn't seem to find any info online, so I thought maybe you could fill us in?
Cadillac Records was one of my favorite films last year. The episodic structure was problematic, but I thought writer/director Darnell Martin really captured the sensuality of the music and the people who made it. And anyone who passes on it will miss superb work by a great ensemble cast. More on topic, I'll probably buy that DVD.
>>They’ll just invent a new format. That’ll give them ten good years before people stop buying KUNG FU PANDA 9 and HD mini-chip sales drop 18%. But by then they’ll all be in Hawaii and it will be your problem. Covet that copy of MANNEQUIN 2. It may someday be obsolete.<<
No wonder I'm having such a tough time finding a bulb for my 16 mm projector. Finding a new player for my 8 tracks is a bitch, too.
Ray
Reminds me of something I was venting about recently: W.W.C.T.G.Y.T.B.N.C.O.S.Y.A.O. (the World Wide Conspiracy To Get You To Buy New Copies Of Stuff You Already Own), a term that Mark Evanier came up with.
WV: adense - we're not stupid enough to buy that crap anymore.
Anonymous said:
Two words for the drop; Bit Torrent...I realize you're old and don't know what that is, but anyone under 35 with a computer probably gets most of their entertainment from Mininova or Pirate Bay. It's gotten as easy as downloading music.
That's illegal, right, or are people paying for those downloads?
I still buy a DVD once in a while -- I have "Volunteers" on the shelf -- but most of my viewing is via Netflix.
Mary, people of a certain age and younger just don't see it as stealing. Any number of reasons, but they just don't see it as being "wrong".
I took some college classes a couple of years ago, and this was pretty much the universal view.
Not that it justifies it, but when you read all the stories about how studios/record companies/most any big corp. fudge numbers on just about anything (royalties, percentages), it's kind of hard to work up a lot of sympathy.
I don't agree with the idea that too much choice has been bad for the customer, as Allen L. put forward. I've owned a library of near 500 DVD's at one time, and none of them were unwatched. They were something I cherished, because I was capable of using my awareness of what I actually enjoyed, and choose good stuff.
And if this matter was put to a representative of the MPAA or one of the studios, either the economy or piracy would be blamed - both are fallacies. People revel in an ability to take their mind off their troubles in times of strife, and while piracy may prevent a percentage of income, the profligacy of piracy has been caused by an inability and unwillingness on the part of major entertainment companies to allow their customers to choose what they want, in a way they want it. I paid through the nose for DVD's when they first came out, and I continued to swallow the high charges for shows I loved on DVD such as all of The West Wing(Yeah the White House isn't like that, but that's not the point), and now I'm supposed to be expected to pay for it again to watch it at a lower quality on an iPod or Xbox? And don't get me started on the total lack of choice from an immense archive of entertainment that has yet to be offered in any legally purchasable fashion for digital distribution. Especially here in the UK, where there is no Netflix or alternative, no PS3 or Xbox Live video marketplace of any use(Although the BBC iPlayer is great for me).
I think you're right Ken, that this is a matter of quality - Offer up everything, and people will gravitate towards quality. Although I did read just now about "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" doing gangbusters on DVD at the moment. Unfortunately the industry as a whole has been chasing the money for so long, and enjoyed doing it, now they've given us choice, we have the choice to say "no" more often. I'd love for the entertainment industry, still saddled in LA, to open their minds and not only do something good, but stand by it, instead of scolding it to look a good bet in the eyes of their shareholders, or fire the guy who commissioned the first good thing that wasn't immediately as popular as bread or American Idol. Most of this comes from my utter dissatisfaction with the TV industry and the weekly culling of good shows, on the basis they haven't caught fire after a year of being bounced around timeslots on channels that have been rearranging primetime schedules so many times, you need a DVR to organise it.
Grrr. Chris cranky. Grrrrr Hollywood.
Oh, and regarding what you said, "Anonymous"?
"Two words for the drop; Bit Torrent...I realize you're old and don't know what that is, but anyone under 35 with a computer probably gets most of their entertainment from Mininova or Pirate Bay. It's gotten as easy as downloading music."
It is possible, but I don't think so much of people feeling it's alright, just that it's more ok to do that - rather than pay an amount that would get you HBO for around three months, just to get around ten hours of programming on a DVD or legal download.
I find the younger people are, the less they care about doing something "illegal". And on the scale of illegal things I think downloading movies or music for them is somewhere around ripping penalty of law tags off mattresses. Some people equate downloading illegal content to robbing a store, but really, to the people who do it it's more like picking something up off the side of the road that somebody else stole and discarded.
"bettyd said...
I still have ALL Disney animated movies on VHS until they stopped making VHS."
If you directly compare, as I did, your VHS Disney animated pictures, say SLEEPING BEAUTY, with the most-recent DVD release of the same title, you'll burn the VHS copy. The difference in picture quality is especially vivid on animated features.
"Joe said...
To show you how deranged I am, I built a tricked out home theatre to watch Buster Keaton."
No better possible use. You have fine taste, young grasshopper. (Well David's not using the phrase anymore.) (Too soon?)
"Frasier Fan said...
I agree with D. McEwan."
You have much wisdom, FF. (Hmmm. Maybe you want to rethink your screen name. The initials are - ah - unfortunate.)
WV: dessesse: What a snake has when it's sick. Same for a 1930s movie sissy stereotype.
You cite "Wall-E" and "Iron Man" as selling well on DVD. These are movies children love, i.e., watch over and over and over and over. Cheaper to buy than rent.
Time for Disney to dip into the vault again.
>>>Two words for the drop; Bit Torrent...I realize you're old and don't know what that is, but anyone under 35 with a computer probably gets most of their entertainment from Mininova or Pirate Bay. It's gotten as easy as downloading music.<<<
Perhaps I'm out of touch with my generation. I'm under 35 and I've never used Bit Torrent. I've watched the occasional TV show via Hulu or YouTube, but I find lounging on my couch watching a show the way it was meant to be seen, on a TV screen, to be vastly superior to sitting in my bedroom watching a show on my computer monitor. And watching a full-length movie online....I don't think I could ever do that.
Of course, I also still buy CDs and actually prefer them to MP3s, so clearly I'm out of touch.
I have around 400 titles on DVD and VHS. When VHS came out I was absolutely tickled to be able to watch my favorite movies any time that I wanted to. Then, when DVDs came out, I was thrilled to be able to see my favorite movies in WIDESCREEN and with a high quality image, anytime that I wanted to, and without having to rewind the damn thing. (All the titles that I own are because I re-watch them. None of them have ever become damaged while I owned them.)
But, I cannot stand most of the movies that have been coming out for the past seven or so years. I've purchased quite a few TV series, but the movies just suck and I've mostly stopped buying them on DVD. If I'm curious about a movie, I'll wait until it arrives on a premium movie channel and then check it out. (I'm almost never pleasantly surprised by them.) I've purchased a few titles, but nothing like the pace at which I was purchasing them five or so years ago. With this ecomony, I'm sure not going to purchase what is most likely to be a disappointing movie simply because I'm curious to see just how bad it is.
I have done some downloading, but never any movies. Why go through the trouble to do that when a) they're terrible to watch and b) it wouldn't cost me all that much to see them if I wanted to (whether in theaters or on DVD), and c) who would want to watch them on a tiny computer screen anyway. I occasionally download an episode of a show that I may have missed, or, more often, a BBC show which I cannot see here in the States.
I believe it's the economy; I usually buy a lot of DVDs through-out the years, but living paycheck-to-paycheck now, my "wishlist" isn't being fulfilled as quickly as it usually is.
Wow, nobody has twigged on the reality, the ultimate reason.
DVD sales, mainly the 'old' or catalog titles are down because there's over 3000 stores that used to sell deep catalog titles, over 3000 gone since 2005.
The death of Musicland Group, Tower Records, Virgin Megastores, other local chains, plus Best Buy reducing their DVD section by about 50% has had a HUGE impact and for some reason Hollywood seems totally ignorant of that fact.
"well, geeze you old timer! NOOOOBODY buys in a *gap* STORE anymore! Online buying RULEZ you dinosaur!"
To those people I offer a big fat fresh monkfish to the head.Not everyone buys online. Not everyone has a credit card.
The truth of this is simple. If 'everyone' DID buy DVDs online, there wouldn't be this crisis, now would there? There'd be stories on how DVD sales were up and up and up, yes? but no.
Buying online assumes you know a DVD has been released. You're limited by how good a job the minimum wage data entry person does their job, do they spell the title right, do they use the correct meta tags, does the search engine know it's there, etc. but in a store (assuming it's a good store, with knowledgeable people both local and at the home office, like Suncoast used to be prior to the Best Buy buyout of 1999) you can go to the section you like, go thru the titles, and a cover might catch your eye, or a title will suddenly pop to you, and you go "Ohhh, I didn't know this was out!" and bang zoom, a sale is made. You CANNOT duplicate that experience with online shopping. If you know what you want, and you're hunting for the best price for that then yes, it's useful, but that random surprise, it just doesn't happen.
If there's a steadily reducing number of places carrying your product, of course sales will be down. I suspect Warner Bros fully understands this with the launch of their online 'Warner Archives' burn-on-demand system (HORRIBLE website, poorly done, and overpriced for BOD product, but where else are you gonna buy 'Countdown' starring James Caan?)
Of course, the Gray Suits in the Gray Offices are so bi-polar on home video anyway...they LOVE LOVE LOVE the money they make off it, but boy do they HATE that you actually own* the product and can watch it anytime you choose and they don't make endless money from you...
(*yes I know, you don't 'own' the movie or TV show, it's considered a lease for private showing, blah blah)
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