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Hollywood wants to offer $30 movie rentals next month
Late next month, a service called Home Premiere will allow consumers to view films on-demand two months after they exit theaters. This is before they're out on DVD, which is typically three months after leaving theatres (Netflix gets them even later). For the privilege of seeing such films earlier from the comfort of their own homes, viewers will be charged a mere $30 for a two-day or three-day rental, according to Variety (we checked, and the story was not published on April 1st).
Hollywood thinks that families will jump on the opportunity. Apparently, they will calculate the costs of paying for movie tickets for everyone in the household, possibly the need for hiring a babysitter, and the savings of not purchasing food and other concessions.
Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, and 20th Century Fox want to offer the service through DirectTV (20 million customers) and some Comcast markets (in certain cities for an undisclosed period of time). The Digital Entertainment Group, which helped Hollywood launch and brand Blu-ray, will assist in building the Home Premiere brand. The companies will initially offer films such as "Just Go With It," "Cedar Rapids," "The Adjustment Bureau," "Paul" and "Hall Pass."
Apparently, the idea is to offer flicks that have disappeared from theaters and have a large appeal among adults who didn't rush out to see it on the big screen. Studios believe those folks will pay a hefty sum to watch the movie at home. We're sure most would agree that $29.99 for a VOD rental is outrageous, but it's cheaper than paying theater admittance for a large family. Despite that poor value, theater operators seem concerned about the service as it could encourage some people to stay home.
We seriously doubt the project will be successful. On the bright side, hopefully this will move us closer to a future with shorter a window between theatrical and video-on-demand release.
User Comments: 37
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i could see this working for families. Good for a movie night, and the kids can watch it again the next day. No junk food, no soda, no popcorn, no travel, no getting there late. You can pause it so the parents can actually watch it to instead of running kids out to the bathroom. Movies are $10, that means if you have two kids you'll come out ahead. And if it's not huge, who cares? i doubt this'll take a lot of $$$ to get started, it doesn't have to make a killing to be worth it.
'Yeah, but you can get all those benefits you mentioned above with a $3 rental that came out a couple months earlier. You're really gonna pay $27 more to watch it a couple weeks sooner?'
Oh yeah.. forgot about that. April Fools!
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First thing that popped into my mind
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Guest said:
on the plus side the high quality rips will be available sooner
Thats the spirit..
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Next to the dumbest idea of the century. The dumbest idea goes to Obama for whatever **** he's coming up with next week!
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Exactly!!
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Whoops. Forgot to quote. :-S
Guest said:on the plus side the high quality rips will be available sooner
Exactly!!
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Even if this does get off the ground, It's another way for people to get pirated movies faster. What better way than to have it on your tv. I'm sure it's not that hard to capture the video. One month earlier for pirated decent copies. Not bad.
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after all i am happy to see that all the movie studio execs still have their heads deeply planted inside their rectums...
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it seems to crazy to not be an april fools but your the fools if it is for doing it outside of april 1st . If true it's mental.
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kg363 said:
For $30 I expect a bluray copy, a dvd copy, and a digital copy
Agreed. to pay $30 for a rental is insane. You can get more than a month of netflix for that price. If with the rental I were sent the Bluray/DVD/Digital edition of the film when it released I would probably do that for more movies. In my area there are "cheap" theaters where after a movie is out of mainstream theaters these places usually have it for something like $2.50/ticket until the movie is on DVD so people can still get a chance to view it on the big screen.
What is the studio smoking.
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Mizzou said:
Just got home from Best Buy with a copy of the new Tron for $24.95; includes 2D & 3D Blu-Ray, Digital Copy and DVD discs. Think it was worth the wait and seems to me a much better alternative than shelling out $30 for two day viewing rights. Hopefully, this latest offering from the movie industry falls on its proverbial caboose.
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OK, this is why I can't state vigorously enough that streaming movies is the worst idea anybody ever had. When DVDs are outlawed, only outlaws will have DVDs.
Conceding to streaming video puts entirely too much power into the hands of the studios.
If anything as stupid as this got off the ground, it would only embolden the MMPA and the studios into price gouging the likes of which you've never seen.
I'm a patient man, I'm going to allow Redbox to fulfill all my movie needs for the foreseeable future.
That is, unless too many imbeciles jump on this bizarre bandwagon, and ruin it for the sane people.
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