Oy, Patrick or Why Journalists Have To Stop Trying To Embrace The Future When They Have Forgotten The Past
I don’t dislike Patrick Goldstein. I really don’t. But he has kinda become my personal poster child for the Old Media being too enthusiastic about New Media because they choose to believe that every kind of media is the same. So, the record business got screwed up, so movies have to go the same way… and fast.
Being wrong, however, is not what gets me riled up. It’s when he makes arguments – and he is certainly not alone – that are false on their face… and he has to know it.
In this column on – again – the inevitable death of movie theaters:
“While nearly everything is different about the way we now consume much of our music, TV and news, the moviegoing experience is largely unchanged from the way our grandparents saw films 75 years ago,”
False.
Let’s skip right over the broadest argument… that we have been eating, fighting, and having sex is pretty much the same way since long before our great great great grandparents were born… and it seems to still be working.
Ahem.
If you limit your insight to “images are projected onto a screen in a big room,” okay. But the fact is, 75 years ago, theaters were massive compared to today, left over from – and often still sharing the stage with – theater. There was no TV… no computers… no home entertainment aside from 78s and radio. People went to the movies and often stayed for hours and hours, sitting through multiple films and shorts and newsreels, etc.
But just focusing on the theatrical experience; we go to one film at a time now, in relatively small theaters with relatively large screens, quality projection and sound (compared to just 20 years ago), often in the midst of malled shopping areas.
Going to the movies is not the same experience at all.
“what will happen when the studio’s scarcity model inevitably undergoes a seismic change?”
It already has, Patrick.
First, there was TV. Then VHS. Then DVD. And now digital delivery.
What Patrick fails to acknowledge – and he has to know this after covering this industry all these years – is that in the last two seismic shifts, Hollywood made the decisions that formed its future, for better or for worse,
He writes, “A few short years ago, Blockbuster was as powerful a force as any studio in the movie business.” Uh, bullshit.
Blockbuster was then, as Netflix is now, a smart business using an opportunity in partnership with the studios. Blockbuster was never a content creator. It was in the business of distributing one part of the product chain… and in one particular way.
Broad strokes here…
It started with The Industry deciding to make VHS a two-tiered business. High priced sell-thru, really to retard direct customer sales, and low-priced rentals. The businesses that were renting out VHS tapes paid the higher price (Say, $79.95), rented for, say $4 for 3 days. So the studio made money right away and the rental business made money after the 20th rental or so. Long windows,as there were for pay-TV and super-long for broadcast TV.
Next gen was with Blockbuster… the studios making even more on VHS rental. They basically colluded with the giant rental company to flood the rental market with copies of films, for which Blockbuster paid much lower rates per unit, and in turn, the studios got paid – for the most part – on the rentals as well as the sold product. Windows got shorter.
VHS sell-thru reared its head in earnest with Batman in 1989… released in June… on the market, at $15 a pop, for Thanksgiving. A five month window for a big hit was unheard of. But it was a massive success and allowed WB to get benefits in two different quarters. It also shortened Batman’s theatrical life to, basically, 2 months. That became the new standard.
Then DVD came along and The Industry decided that sell-thru was the way to maximize revenues. And they were right. At $15 a pop – who buys retail? – it was like crack. New product flew off the shelves, but so did the only libraries. DVD was a real quality step forward for the at-home experience. People wanted it. And they wanted their favorite films and shows at their fingertips. Quickly, the net revenues from DVD outdid theatrical. And the windows got shorter again because the lust for the cash was overwhelming.
However, this was the beginning of the end for Blockbuster. Rental space and sales space battled within the stores. Adding to the problem was Amazon and even the brick & mortar retailers. If you were a DVD buyer, no reason to go to Blockbuster at all. And don’t forget, Blockbuster fought hard against sell-thru. They knew exactly how deadly it would be.
While this was happening, by the way, theaters were shuttering all over America, as the oversized houses and long-standing rentals agreements were killing exhibitors. From the ashes came new theaters with very few houses over 500 seats and most theaters in the 250- 350 range in multiplexes of anywhere from 8 theaters to 24 (sometimes more).
This ushered in a whole new way of frontloading the box office, expanding the number of screening rooms in a theater running a movie to fit the size of the audience or anticipated audience. This was great for the big studio films… and a big problem for smaller films with smaller marketing budgets and for long runs. 2002’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding was the last of it kind for that reason, not because of quality or anything else about the movies themselves.
Every single year, ticket sales dropped by 1.5% – 3%. Part of this was the short windows. Well liked films that audiences might have “gotten around to” were no longer in theaters by the time they reach what was probably the last 10% – 15% of the audience. Studios didn’t care. The last $10 million on a $100 million domestic grosser meant another $4 million or less coming back to the studio (the old shifting rentals system) and holding off on DVD for another month or two meant waiting on another $60m – $120m in net revenues. No patience in Corporate America.
And now that the DVD business has matured into much smaller numbers and the Next Big Thing that is digital delivery is out there, again we wait for The Industry to decide what it’s going to do. Thing is, they seem to understand that there is no Next DVD staring them in the face. So there is a lot more panic going on. “They” don’t feel in control.
But as before, every choice The Industry makes is directly and clearly connected to What Comes Next.
What Patrick and many other Chicken Littles out there seem to miss completely is that each transition has been either forced by a real financial threat or by the opportunity of increased revenue. Theatrical exhibition is not threatening the post-theatrical markets or the health of the industry. Spending habits developed in the DVD boom era is the only threat. And as far as New Opportunity… the notion that digital delivery with create revenues that match current post-theatrical, much less match both theatrical and post-theatrical… there is ZERO indication of that at this time.
Models do not just collapse randomly. HDTVs did not eliminate old tube TVs until cable and satellite and programmers were providing enough content to make them hugely attractive AND the price became commensurate with the tube TVs. A win for consumers. A win for TV sales overall. And for programming creators, a chance to sell their stuff one more time.
Alice in Wonderland did solid DVD sales with a short window… but it also did massive theatrical. Would there have been any more profit in a day-n-day home ent release with no theatrical? Unlikely. And until that answer is, “yes,” theatrical isn’t going anywhere.
And if theatrical ever does go mostly away, it will be a choice by The Industry. I’d say that’s a 95% bet. You always have to acknowledge that something freaky can happen. And it could. But theatrical will not die of its own weakness… not from bad movies.. or expensive popcorn… or even too-expensive 3D. It will die when The industry kills it. Count on it.
what’s more, less than one hundredth of one percent of people go to the movie theater to experience art. Everyone goes to the movie theater because it is a cheap escape. The audience is self renewing, kids, teens, college,new adults, middle aged and elderly all enjoy going to the movies for recreation and the experience of getting out of the house for an evening. It’s part of an evenings entertainment, and unless you’re in one of three or four major cities you don’t have many other entertainment options (music, theatre). People go to the movies to have fun, and because going to the movies is generally more fun that watching one at home. And while teens may go once a week due to having time and money and a wider variety of companions with both time and money to accompany them, for many people going to the movies is a treat that only happens every once in a while.
People don’t stop giving themselves treats like movie night because you can download Alice in Wonderland to your ipod in just two months(!)
About the only group of people that don’t go to the movies very often are young parents. :-p apparently they’re too tired to even try for a brief respite.
NEWS FLASH:
NOBODY in the FUCKING WORLD knows who Patrick Goldstein is, who NIKKI FINKE is, who David Poland is, who Glenn Kenny is, who AAAAAAAAAAAANY OF YOU PEOPLE ARE.
I come to these sites DAY IN AND DAY OUT because I love movies, and because for whatever reason, my little low-rent shtick that amuses me on coffee breaks at an office seems to have caught on enough that I get some attention for it, and it’s better than posting on the ROONEY MARA’S TOES message board.
BUT all this insular swiping and Goldstein, Poland, Nikki, Armond…
You guys HAVE NO PERSPECTIVE, do you?
YOU ARE NOT FAMOUS. NO ONE knows or cares about these little FEUDS, NOBODY knows who the fuck ANY OF YOU ARE, and much as you’ll all act like that’s not the point, IT’S TOTALLY THE POINT because you guys all beef like the world’s weakest, lamest, whitest fucking rappers, all thinking you’re somehow DYNAMIC PERSONALITIES and LITTLE SUPERSTARS, but YOU. ARE. WHITE. MIDDLE-AGED. FILM CRITICS.
Sorry, ANNE THOMPSON ain’t exactly giving MC Ren a run for his money on street cred. So ENOUGH WITH THIS BULLSHIT INFIGHTING between six lame white people who ARE SO NICHE and SO OBSCURE, it’s like reading about BEEFS between the LOCAL AREA WEATHERMEN in SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI.
The thing is, ALL OF YOU think you’re INTERNATIONAL SUPERTARS, on par with the ACTORS you STARFUCK, but you are NOT.
It’s like reading about six guys on staff at the local Albuquerque newspaper fighting over who gets the better byline.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBODY…..
CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARES.
The people that read, care about, and actually understand the content of this blog post know who all of those people are.
I sense that LexG is on the verge of some sort of personal epiphany.
I know this could not be the case — for several reasons, many of them quite practical ones — but I must admit: There are times when I amuse myself by thinking of Lex G as David’s Harry Kellerman.
“unless you’re in one of three or four major cities you don’t have many other entertainment options (music, theatre)”
Do you honestly believe there are only three or four cities in the U.S. that have vibrant live music and theater options? I mean, are you seriously kidding? Have you traveled at all?
As with the moviegoing experience, i can guarentee I eat, fight, and have sex different than my grandparents (or at least hope to god I do)
As usual, Poland delivers an insightful, knowledgeable bit of analysis as a refute to an industry commentator’s ill conceived one. This sort of critical evaluation is always needed and becoming more rare.
I do have two quibbles. First, the use of first names of people you don’t personally know and have a history with is way too familiar and unprofessional. It’s also odd because he seldom does this with actors and filmmakers.
The second is the contention that BATMAN shortened it’s own theatrical window to only 2 months by releasing the video 5 months later. This ignores the fact that even film geeks, much less the general public, were unaware of said window.
******* ******* *********
Let me tie half my brain behind my back and swat a certain annoying attention seeking parasite: if you are coming to this and other similar film sites, then it is highly likely that you DO KNOW who Goldstein, Finke and the rest of the pack are. Which is, of course, beside the point. Poland obviously loves to debate the issues they raise while at the same time he has his own bete noire over their perceived journalistic shortcomings.
Put another way, if the world they live in is so insular and unknown, what exactly does that make someone who uses their boards & blogs to draw attention to himself…?
And Lex in one post pretty much sums up why he is better served by the talkbacks over at AICN.
It’s not about you, asshole.
I don’t follow everything that is said on the board, but i try to. Because i find the topics of the behind the scenes machinations of the film industry fascinating. Sure, there are mentions of people i have to look up, and if i said i followed everything 100% then i’d be a damn dirty liar.
But if you like this part of the film industry, these posts are interesting to read and try and participate in.
If you want to talk about masturbating to hot actresses, there are about 40,000 people just like you at the AICN talkbacks.
But your shtick isn’t original over there. And i doubt you’d get the kind of negative attention you so desperately crave.
Geez, I’m so glad I’m going to New Orleans this weekend, so I’ll have so many more music and theatre options than I do here in Houston. Er, that is, assuming Movielocke considers N.O. to be one of those 3 or 4 cities he’s talking about.
Angus, Ja Rule just called.
He said you’re a douche.
I have to say… I’m siding with Lex on this one, Poland.
And it’s not because I agree with him that “NO ONE CARES”… but frankly, because of your writing style. (Ironically, Deathtongue’s quibbles mentioned in his diss of Lex are exactly WHY I’m with Lex.)
I feel dirty after reading one of these posts. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But again, it’s the referring to people on a first-name basis… and worse, writing things like “Ahem” and “It already has, Patrick” and “he has to know this after covering this industry all these years”. Enough with the asides! These posts are so dripping with snark, it sounds like a high school girl wrote them.
I wouldn’t mind reading a friendly, factual counter-argument to Goldstein. But honestly, I don’t know what it is — what axe do you have to grind with him? What did he do to wrong you? Is it something about him having greater exposure? (And I’m not even bringing up Finke yet)
Sadly, I already know the answer: “I’m just interested in the facts, Mr. F. And when someone misstates them so flagrantly, I have to act.” And that’s fine. I just always feel like you’re being a jerk about it in posts like this. Lex may not have stated his opinion in the cleanest, clearest way… but I totally agree with the sentiment.
(And GOD FORBID the next time Nikki Finke opens her mouth about something stupid… because while I can avoid it by NOT GOING to her dumb blog… I know I’ll have to sort through every asinine he-said, she-said detail here.)
My apologies if this sounds too harsh — I really enjoy your reviews, and your opinions about movies, which is why I keep reading after all these years — but recently, it seems to me like it’s not about giving your side of things, but about proving you’re smarter than everyone else… (then again, I also know how hard it is to accurately convey tone across a computer screen… so perhaps I’m the one who’s totally misreading you)
Well, to be fair, DP is using the kind of “speak truth to power” voice that works pretty well on a blog and more than likely keeps people coming back. As someone interested in journalism, I like these pieces and feel that they are based in substance, unlike the rival weathermen analogy (“I predicted the storm before you did!”).
The first sell-thru VHS was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which Paramount released at $39.95 instead of the normal $79.95.
“my little low-rent shtick that amuses me on coffee breaks at an office…”
I don’t get the point of any schtick that involves posting ‘I want to kill myself’ multiple times, late at night, every night.