"Those who spent $5.99 to watch a 48-hour rental of The Interview on their browser could simply share the URL of the film with anyone else. Worse yet, anyone who had access to the link was able to save an unprotected copy locally through a super obvious loophole, something The Verge was able to confirm from different browsers and locations."

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/24/7...nyone-download

wtf?

they shouldn't be allowed to make a movie without him.

I'm not giving much credence to any grand conspiracy theories, but this whole fiasco could very well be the death knell for theater chains. Why the hell would I go to a theater if I can just stream it day-and-date for cheaper?

How much would you be willing to pay for day/date streaming? $5.99 is way cheap for that kind of thing.

You think it's cheap just because of the current movie ticket costs.

I imagine we may see a couple companies try it in the near future but no way they can judge the effectiveness of same day streaming on this movie. They will make bank off it obviously due to the publicity.

The only way they can tell how truly effective something like that would be would be to put something out like The Hobbit as a day/date VOD/streaming release (streaming won't happen, because of all the problems already being exhibited by the early release of The Interview). Nearly everything being released as current day/date type movies are ones that no one would have any interest in to begin with (a few experiments have been done). It needs to be something that doesn't need to be seen in movie theaters. Movies like Interstellar/The Hobbit, etc. are much better experiences in the theater. Typical action comedies or comedies are easily able to be seen on VOD without sacrificing much of the experience.

IDK but whatever the going rate is, near-zero distribution costs have a way of driving down the price over time.

i want to operate the first theater that streams all its movies

Maybe. But with SO many people having huge TVs and decent sound systems, the margin is way smaller than it used to be.

Don't forget that moving to that kind of model would drastically slash budgets, which most people would not think is a good thing. Movies need to make A LOT of money to recover large budgets, and it would be harder to make that money at cheaper prices where people could just throw movie watching parties for $9.99 (which I think is a much more realistic price). It's gonna happen one day, but movie theaters are very unlikely to become obsolete for a long time.

On those huge TVs and decent sound systems Interstellar is still very likely to be a poor experience in comparison to even the worst movie theater it's playing in. That's especially true for sound, where that mix is playing way way louder than it would ever be able to play in a typical home theater system.

That's far from clear to me. I don't see any particular reason why the studios themselves would automatically make less money. They might, but only time will tell.

As for myself, I go to ZERO movies in theaters but would certainly order a bunch online, so whatever they make from me would be an improvement.

Did you see the post someone linked to above where The Interview's rental was able to essentially be stolen due to very poor security? Pirating is a huge cost to the studios, and they are trying hard to protect themselves from it. So, unless you have something that would allow you to watch PPV, hoping for day/date streaming releases is just not something to root for for awhile.

I wouldn't be surprised if movies were ONLY released direct to VOD that you would never see another $175+ million budgeted movie again (so much can be done with around $100 million these days). Ticket sales are really important to them.

The movie industry was absolutely dying until DVD came along and saved the day. Unfortunately, they tried to milk the cow to Blu-ray before DVD was exhausted, and it's almost put them in a similar cycle to the late 90s. VOD will likely be the DVD type savior of the industry tomorrow, but there are obviously a lot of concerns for the studios to get to that point.

Studios get almost all the ticket sales money. Theaters make money from popcorn, etc.


NFW a VOD + DVD sales model could recoup $100mil+ budgets.

Well, VOD-only is decades down the road. We still have books and bookstores, after all. But the writing is on the wall, and I'd no more invest in a theater chain today than I would in Borders fifteen years ago.

Nope. Deals vary all over the map. They usually get the lion's share from OPENING weekends of TENTPOLES but that's very far from "almost all". (Yes, as a matter of fact, I DID work in Business Affairs at a Hollywood studio.)

They are able to make PROFIT only by vastly overcharging for those things... another reason they will be disappearing.

You don't know for sure, and neither do I, and neither does anyone else.

That model would definitely be able to recoup $100mil budgets, but not the frequent $180-200 mil budgets that are happening a lot these days. Under that model, I think the top end budgets would be around $125 mil.

I wonder how well VR can replicate the theater experience.

I enjoyed the movie.

Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen)

@verge go **** yourselves.

It wasn't very funny =/

I'm surprised the thread title hasn't been updated with "then uncancels it - Land of the free bitches!" or something like that

Like probably 80%+ of everything else you've confidently speculated on so far, this is wrong and based on nothing substantial at all. The only difference for me was spending the $5.99 to rent yesterday instead of a rainy Sunday in April or whenever it would have hit On Demand.

Since you want to speculate on my movie habits though can we do a little review on your fine work ITT? A week ago you declared a theater release dead and obviously that didn't pan out. You confuse North and South Korea (lol). Some terrible analogies I and others have mentioned. Then you weakly float your publicity stunt and insurance ideas as "what are the chances that...," at first, and then slowly wind up talking yourself to the point of certainty. Or pretended to, I'm sure you did that a week ago and have just been looking to support the narrative.

It makes absolutely no sense for a studio to jeopardize a Christmas week release to dick around in the dead months following just for the sake of a little extra buzz, which they already had. Rogen may be a hack but was the star of a $250m+ comedy just this year. Why risk a smaller if not limited release trying to get cute? Why confuse your potential audience on the release date?

The simplest explanation is there was more controversy than expected with the movie, unforeseen safety concerns, and waaay more overreaction all resulting in Sony getting stuck. They were rushing around for a week fumbling all over themselves trying to salvage something out of it. There are reports like they tried for iTunes and Amazon who couldn't do it on the fast timetable. Others rejected them. The DRM for the Google/YouTube release is a mess and looks hastily thrown together.

You can't understand how VOD became the 24th? How about if Google and MS demanded it a day early? Maybe to enjoy exclusivity for a day, or (far more likely) it was just due to the logistics of doing anything on Christmas Day when most offices are closed or lightly staffed.

These seem like painfully easy explanations that actually make sense. It doesn't require making up figures or telling people what movies they would or wouldn't have watched.

Back to the actual movie, quick review. I'll spoiler-box it but not many surprises left, but will cover most of the specifics.

Cliffs at bottom.



Cliffs: These guys need better writing and a stronger supporting cast. Danny McBride and Craig Robinson are funny as **** and were badly missed. It's sluggish and a barely passable rental if you're hard up for a non-romantic comedy. If you think it sucks 30 minutes in just turn it off because it doesn't get better.