Finding an Audience: Distribution Notes for 7/18/08

Karina passes on competing viewpoints on how important a theatrical release is in the life of a movie, with one side calling it extraordinarily important as a legitimizing factor in the minds of the audience and the other saying that with all the new and better targeted distribution platforms out there, the idea of putting a movie in a theater is kind of out-dated. The LAT also examines the growing online market for independent films.

The ground-breaking Four-Eyed Monsters online gets celebrated by Cinematical on the verge of the movie’s release on DVD.

The conventional wisdom that high gas prices send people to the theater – a short trip as opposed to longer weekend trips – gets questioned.

US Airways will no longer show theatrical features on its flights, but studios aren’t too worried that other airlines will do likewise.

It should come as no surprise that a study funded by a company that offers DRM solutions raised a red-flag about the rise of piracy of big-name movies in both the U.S. and Great Britain. Yeah, that’s real shocking.

20th Century Fox is holding a series of screenings at stores and other locations in popular spots around the country to promote their DVD library as a way to get people excited about home video released.

The numbers on DVD aren’t dire yet, though, with 67% of those 13-29 still saying they rent or buy discs monthly. And spending on both DVD and Blu-ray discs has actually risen 1.6 percent in the first half of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007.

Blockbuster is counting on the release of a few big-name titles like Iron Man and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to boost its fourth-quarter earnings.

Meanwhile, Disney is counting on the interactive features on its Cinderella Blu-ray will generate a new wave of interest in the format. And Warner Bros. is hoping for the same consumer interest as a result of dropping prices.

Netflix is adding its Watch Instantly download service to the Xbox 360, setting the stage for even more such services. As Matt Griswold says, the service will allow for up to eight friends to watch the same movie at once, bringing social recommendations and viewing back into the formerly solitary home video game.

Paramount has signed a deal to put current blockbusters like Beowulf and Cloverfield, among others, on the rental site Jaman.com that will make the titles available for about $3 or $4.

Viacom has worked out a deal with the Weinstein Co. that will have that studio’s films become available on the new pay-cable channel it’s starting with a couple other studios. The deal will start with movies the Weinstein Co. releases beginning in 2009 and include films from its Dimension Films division.

Lionsgate is also among the ranks of those making deals, with time with YouTube. The studio will make clips from its library of movies available officially on the site, with the two parties sharing advertising revenue from the clips that appear on Lionsgate’s channel. The deal was hashed out when Lionsgate was trying to get all their unauthorized clips off of YouTube and realized it was relatively pointless.