Finding An Audience: Distribution Notes for 9/17/08

The summer box-office performed better than expected in an weak economic environment, boosted largely by strong performances from superheroes and adorable animated characters. It also didn’t hurt that people weren’t traveling long distances due to the economy in general and gas price in particular and so were looking for near-to-home alternatives. Like, for instance, movies.

A dramatic influx of cash over the last few years has left Hollywood with the means to make more than enough movies, but the distribution pipeline hasn’t expanded to accommodate such volume. So you have films with big stars that might have done decent business on screens getting dumped to DVD or outright spiked and sitting on shelves. Meanwhile fewer and fewer films are able to succeed because of the plethora of choices available to audiences.

Comcast has launched the Fancast Download Store, letting you buy or rent movie downloads, though the player is a bit of proprietary software and there’s no Mac version as of yet. Still, something to keep in mind.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore will release his new film Slacker Uprising as a free download for three weeks before the film gets a series of local screenings and a release on DVD in early October.

After the carnage that was fall of 2007, which was heavy on war and socially aware movies, the studios are promising a release slate this year that mixes in more audience-friendly movies with a few heavier flicks.

The notion that Netflix is betting heavily on Sebulba streaming video is only going to be a surprise to you if you haven’t been paying attention to the news for the last six to eight months. Still, I wish their Watch Now feature worked on a Mac.

Martin Scorsese’s is once again making sure some deserving films see the light of day. His Film Foundation is partnering with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to bring movies lingering in Sony’s library to DVD with new content like talent interviews and more.

The first title to be released under this banner, which will be dubbed “Collector’s Choice,” is The Films of Budd Boetticher, a collection of five westerns by the director.

Scorsese has a strong history of helping people discover movies he thinks are worthwhile and it would be great to see more studios working with him – or anyone else – to bring their library to the public.

Despite the fact that over 90,000 titles will soon be available on DVD there are so many notable, historic films that haven’t been released as of yet. Studios put out multiple versions of current box-office hits but often ignore their library. It’s good to see some studios taking steps to right that balance.

Along similar lines, 20th Century Fox is prepping a 12-DVD box-set of the films of F.W. Murnau and Frank Borzage.

Dolby is doing its part to speed the roll-out of more 3-D theaters by dropping the price of the multi-use glasses it provides.