Hey folks Valkor here. There is a pretty cool article over at Yahoo! News that anyone interested in the future of theatrical films and their home releases, should definitely take a gander. (article is long gone, but not forgotten). The gist of it is the major studios are considering shortening the window between a films theatrical release and its DVD release. If this should actually come to pass it could have both positive and negative effects on how and where we watch movies in the future; pretty much changing the movie industry as we speak.
The thing about this is it’s actually not a bad plan. Going to the theaters, isn’t as much fun as it used to be. I don’t care what most people say about the quality of films. It’s not the quality of films that has people not going, it’s actually going to the theater itself that’s making people stop. It’s no longer a convenience and it’s too costly. After paying so much money for the ticket, plus concessions you feel wiped before the commercials begin. There’s another point: Ads. We have to sit through 30 minutes of commercials, for a film we have to pay for? When we watch movies on HBO we don’t see Fanta ads, so why is it that we have to see them in the theater? Cut the ads and no matter how crappy the movie is people will come. Finally the experience of watching a film and getting drawn into it is taken away when all of a sudden cellphones start ringing every few minutes, or people bring kids to R-rated films, or things just get rowdy. Why wouldn’t, after all this, will people want to stay home rather than sit in a movie theater. Getting a film soon after it’s theatrical release on DVD (or whatever software they choose in the not so distant future) would be precisely what people would want to see happen. Think about it. Most homes are now fully equipped to give you the theatrical experience… without all the extra fluff to go with it. DVD’s do come with promos at the beginning but you can either skip past it or fast forward straight to the beginning. Plus its cheaper as you can have whatever you want when you watch the movie, whatever you can cook up in your kitchen or what you can order up from fast food. So going to the theater will be pretty much moot if you can get the DVD just after its release. And the added incentive is that people won’t download movies because why download a crappy copy (or even a decent divx copy) when you can have an official copy sitting on your shelf rather than hogging up precious hard drive space?
There is a downside to this as well and it’s a major
drawback to having an immediate DVD release. Theaters will go extinct. It
really won’t be the same anymore once and if immediate home releases do happen because
what would be the point of it all? It would be so much easier to just go to
Best Buy or Walmart and buy the DVD than to deal with the hassle of going and
sitting in a theater. However it would be sad really to see theaters start
closing because of this because some of the best moments of my life (as well as
many others) have been sitting in a movie theater and getting drawn into
strange new worlds, or watching people get into and out of precarious
situations, seeing the Death Star Come to life and blowing up Alderaan, Indiana
Jones face to face with a booby trapped relic, then being chased by a huge
boulder, watching Batman Begins was a great moving going experience (because
the character was finally done right for the big screen. My all time favorite
moment:
So I think it is best to say that no matter what change is gonna come and we just have to accept it. However we can cushion the blow by bringing back that feeling that made going to the theaters fun in the first place. Having a DVD release soon after its theatrical release isn’t so bad, so long as theater owners and movie studios work together to make going from one medium to the other worthwhile, so that all are content.