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0 pointsHarHarVeryFunny3y ago0 comments

Interesting, but the DVD vs post-DVD part of it doesn't make sense without more explanation or numbers attached.

In the DVD era most people didn't buy expensive DVDs - they rented them from Blockbuster (then later Netflix) just as they had done before on VHS.

In the post-DVD era there is still plenty of money coming after the theatrical release in the form of money from streaming services. How does this source of revenue compare to that of the DVD era, and, if it's significantly different, then why?

One thing that's different nowadays is how quickly movies go from theatre to streaming, but that's under control of the movie studio - presumably they expect to make more money this way.

Perhaps the real problem is the cost of producing, and marketing, these Hollywood movies in the first place, making it necessary for everything to be a mega-hit to be successful.

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elorant3y ago· 2 in thread

What I take from what he said is that the shelf life of movies has shortened. You either make it in the first couple of weeks, or you’re bust. While with the dvds the movie stayed relevant for much longer which could result in a reduced budget for marketing.

HarHarVeryFunnyOP3y ago

The reduced shelf life part of it - you need to make money from the theatrical release, not after - certainly seems to be what he is saying, but it's not clear why that is the case.

If the studio makes more money from ticket sale revenue sharing, than from streaming (or previously DVD rental), then why are they now rushing to streaming so quickly?

To speculate:

Blockbuster used to be utterly dominant in the VHS/DVD rental era, and there would be prominently displayed in-store advertising of what in-theatre movies were coming to DVD/Rental soon, as well as the new releases getting their own section in the store. Perhaps in-store DVD rental therefore created it's own marketing and extended shelf life, as opposed to online streaming rental where the customer likely already knows what they are looking for a opposed to being influenced by "coming-soon and newly-released" in-store marketing.

The lack of variety of movies in the US, to which Damon is responding, is also at least in part because there is, for whatever reason, no culture of arts cinemas here. The whole industry is geared up for the economics of large budget movies and the de-risking that involves.

elorant3y ago

With streaming you need no marketing because network effects do it for you. You take advantage of the power of the platform. You only pay to market the really big ones, everything else gets the same kind of promotion which already is too strong because you have an established user base in the millions. Before streaming you had no user base, it was open season for everyone.

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