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View Full Version : Lucas Ponders Digital Film Distribution


Jason Dunn
11-26-2005, 05:08 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://hollywoodreporter.com/thr/film/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001524471&imw=Y' target='_blank'>http://hollywoodreporter.com/thr/film/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001524471&imw=Y</a><br /><br /></div><i>"I don't think the theatrical exhibition business will go away because I think people will always want to go to the movies, just as they go to the opera, they go to the ballet, and they go to football games. Football is a perfect example, where you can stay at home and watch it in the comfort of your own home and see a much better presentation, but people still sit out in the cold and cheer on (their teams) ... and you can't see anything because it's all distant. And now they have giant screens so you can watch it on television right there -- but they still fill up 100,000-seat (stadiums). We'll end up with fewer theaters with bigger screens and better presentations, and the theater owners will work very hard to make the whole thing an event."</i><br /><br />George Lucas weighs in on the future of movie distribution, and he feels it's digital. The article has some very interesting information about the economics of movie distribution that I never knew - it's worth the read.

Felix Torres
11-26-2005, 01:57 PM
Hmm... Simultaneous release via pay per view...

Considering Lucas is an entrepreneur first, a producer second, and a director third, his ideas carry weight.
I assume, though, that $2 per movie is the end-of-run price.
I expect a simultaneous home/theater streaming release to be priced higher, probably at $10 or higher.
And it will only come after theaters are outfitted for better-than-HD digital display techs.

Studios are basically comfortable with their existing staggered release strategy because the theatrical release not only promotes the DVD but it also measures market interest so they can better gauge the size of the first production run of DVDs. (Shrek2 type overruns are rare.)

I could see studios doing simultaneous release with copy-protected-unto-uselessness BD-ROMs at $50. And then releasing cheaper HD-DVD/DVD hybrids at $20 three months later.

Might be a way to make the format war work for them... :twisted: