Secondary markets have been a big boon to the movie business – even though the major studios were initially against the VCR way back when.
However, the VCR ended up creating a huge revenue stream that would prove even more crucial when the costs of movies went through the roof. Now with the DVD market collapsing, studios are trying to figure out what the next secondary market will be.
As you’ve read on TG, Universal was toying with having the upcoming film Tower Heist available for Video on Demand soon after its theatrical release.
Of course, this infuriated theater owners, who don’t want the theatrical windows for movies to narrow further.
The idea was quickly pulled by Universal following the chorus of outrage, and it also sent the majors back to the drawing board.
Now as Variety reports, the Cameron Diaz comedy Bad Teacher became available on iTunes, Xbox, Playstation Network and Vudu before its DVD release.
As Andrew Wallenstein writes, “The goal is to convert even a fraction of the consumers who might otherwise rent the film to purchase instead.”
With DVD going down, the majors are hoping you’ll pay for the movie this way, as well as through the UltraViolet cloud system.
With any new technology, the majors are tipping their little toes in the water first before diving in head first. And as Variety notes, Sony also tried this with a documentary about A Tribe Called Quest, while Summit offered the movie Source Code digitally two weeks before its DVD release.
