By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY ON PROTECTING THE MOVIE-GOING EXPERIENCE

Posted Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 - 5 Comments »
Be Sociable, Share!

AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY ON PROTECTING THE MOVIE-GOING EXPERIENCE

We are the artists and business professionals who help make the movie business great. We produce and direct movies. We work on the business deals that help get movies made. At the end of the day, we are also simply big movie fans.

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk by leaders at some major studios and cable companies about early-to-the-home “premium video-on-demand.” In this proposed distribution model, new movies can be shown in homes while these same films are still in their theatrical run.
In this scenario, those who own televisions with an HDMI input would be able to order a film through their cable system or an Internet provider as a digital rental. Terms and timing have yet to be made concrete, but there has been talk of windows of 60 days after theatrical release at a price of $30.

Currently, the average theatrical release window is over four months (132 days). The theatrical release window model has worked for years for everyone in the movie business. Current theatrical windows protect the exclusivity of new films showing in state-of-the-art theaters bolstered by the latest in digital projection, digital sound, and stadium seating.

As a crucial part of a business that last year grossed close to $32 billion in worldwide theatrical ticket sales, we in the creative community feel that now is the time for studios and cable companies to acknowledge that a release pattern for premium video-on-demand that invades the current theatrical window could irrevocably harm the financial model of our film industry.

Major studios are struggling to replace the revenue lost by the declining value of DVD transactions. Low-cost rentals and subscriptions are undermining higher priced DVD sales and rentals. But the problem of declining revenue in home video will not be solved by importing into the theatrical window a distribution model that cannibalizes theatrical ticket sales.

Make no mistake: History has shown that price points cannot be maintained in the home video window. What sells for $30-a-viewing today could be blown out for $9.99 within a few years. If wiser heads do not prevail, the cannibalization of theatrical revenue in favor of a faulty, premature home video window could lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. Some theaters will close. The competition for those screens that remain will become that much more intense, foreclosing all but the most commercial movies from theatrical release. Specialty films whose success depends on platform releases that slowly build in awareness would be severely threatened under this new model. Careers that are built on the risks that can be taken with lower budget films may never have the chance to blossom under this cut-throat new model.
Further, releasing a pristine, digital copy of new movies early to the home will only increase the piracy problem—not solve it.

As leaders in the creative community, we ask for a seat at the table. We want to hear the studios’ plans for how this new distribution model will affect the future of the industry that we love.

And until that happens, we ask that our studio partners do not rashly undermine the current – and successful – system of releasing films in a sequential distribution window that encourages movie lovers to see films in the optimum, and most profitable, exhibition arena: the movie theaters of America.

We encourage our colleagues in the creative community to join with us by calling or emailing NATO at 202-962-0054 or nato@natodc.com.
Sincerely,

Michael Bay
Kathryn Bigelow
James Cameron
Guillermo del Toro
Roland Emmerich
Antoine Fuqua
Todd Garner
Lawrence Gordon
Stephen Gyllenhaal
Gale Anne Hurd
Peter Jackson
Karyn Kusama
Jon Landau
Shawn Levy
Michael Mann
Bill Mechanic
Jamie Patricof
Todd Phillips
Brett Ratner
Robert Rodriguez
Adam Shankman
Gore Verbinski
Robert Zemeckis

Paid for by the National Association of Theatre Owners

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 5 Comments »

5 Responses to “AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE CREATIVE COMMUNITY ON PROTECTING THE MOVIE-GOING EXPERIENCE”

  1. Paul Preston says:
    April 20, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    I never thought I’d say this, but I’m a fan of what Roland Emmerich is doing.

  2. Rupert Pupkin says:
    April 20, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    This will not cannibalize theatrical because the people who would rent movies at home were not going to the theater anyway. That’s money that was being left on the table. If someone wants to pay $30 or $10 to watch Just Go With It at home, God bless them. They were never going to waste money on a babysitter for it so the filmmakers should be happy.

  3. Jamie says:
    May 4, 2011 at 8:59 am

    But this letter doesn’t even address the movie-going “experience.” Just the business side of things. You want to talk about the “experience?” Address the issues that have kept me from the theatres for more than a year.

    Streaming movies at home means I don’t have to put up with idiots talking over the movie. It’s also more cost effective, though I might be willing to pay more to stream current releases.

    Also, ditto what Rupert Pupkin said.

  4. vshav says:
    May 4, 2011 at 11:06 am

    I cannot afford $11.00 per ticket for a family of 4, plus popcorn, drinks and candy.

    A trip to the movie theater with my family costs between $70 – $90 and I have to drive there (gas) and I have to worry about my kid needing to go to the bathroom, or just getting scared or something.

    I welcome the home viewing of new releases with open arms. The industry will start to get some more of my money if this happens.

  5. Coery Allen''filmmaker'' says:
    May 13, 2011 at 9:22 pm

    This is only for true filmmakers and movie fans,these people say they can’t afford this and that and probably spend a hell of alot more in other ridiculous places.I remember when going to the theaters was in event,people got dressed up and it still is the superbowl of entertainment .To sit back and watch movie houses close would be watching one of our favorite outlets perish forever.Come on people let’s support these filmmakers,no theaters,no movies being produced will eventually effect the shows at home to,then what?

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon