“Bubble,” Director Steven Soderbergh’s (“Traffic,” “Erin Brockovich”) new film, is not being rabidly discussed among Hollywood insiders because of its artistic merit, but because it is the first film to ever be released in theatres, on television and on DVD in a four-day span.
Soderbergh, in league with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, is attempting to close the six-month span that usually separates a film’s debut in theaters and its availability on DVD and is stirring dissension in the Hollywood business world.
Movies are traditionally released in “windows:” first to theaters, then to DVD. After that, they are shown on television, pay-per-view, video-on-demand and airlines. Using this method, studios have hoped to exhaust each window before moving on to the next. Recently, however, growing levels of online piracy and counterfeit-DVD sales have challenged this long-obeyed release cycle. Movies are now often available over the Internet weeks before their release date.
Box office receipts in 2005 were down by 5 percent and attendance dropped by 8 percent. But, many Hollywood executives still insist that releasing a film in theatres first generates excitement for the DVD release.
Some, like Soderbergh and Cuban, argue that doing away with the windowed release will give consumers options when viewing films. Today, at least 50 percent of a movie’s revenue comes from DVD sales, so it stands to reason that having a film on DVD right away would be both practical and lucrative.
Theater owners, who worry that simultaneous releases would destroy their already struggling business, are skeptical. In fact, many of nation’s biggest theater chains have refused to play any movie released in multiple formats on the same day.
Despite industry doubts, Soderbergh and Cuban appear to have started a trend. Rainbow Media intends on simultaneously releasing as many as 24 independent films this year in art houses and through a video-on-demand service.
So, it would appear that the film industry, despite some controversy, is experimenting now in order to protect their business from the rapid technological advances occuring in today’s sociey.
