Universal Makes Movies Now Playing in Theaters Available Online (wsj.com) 51
Comcast's Universal Pictures said it is making its movies available to watch at home while they are still in theaters, a massive change from Hollywood's long-established business model that could upend the industry if other studios follow suit. From a report: The decision comes amid widespread closures of movie theaters as the global coronavirus pandemic spreads. Authorities in New York City and Los Angeles on Sunday ordered all movie theaters to close; exhibitors had previously said they would limit attendance in theaters to 50% of their capacity. China, the world's second-largest market, has kept tens of thousands of theaters closed since late January. Major studios typically release new movies exclusively in theaters during a "window" of 75 days in a bid to maintain ticket sales, on the theory that fans are more likely to watch a new movie at home if that is an option. Keeping that strategy in place has long been a priority for theaters, and major studios generally have been reluctant to do away with such windows altogether, even as the lengths of those periods have steadily shortened over the years.
Universal said that by Friday recently released films like "The Invisible Man," "The Hunt" and "Emma" will be available for digital rental for $19.99 in the U.S., or the equivalent value in overseas markets. Paying the rental fee will allow customers 48 hours to watch the movie. In an even bolder move, Universal also said "Trolls World Tour" will open simultaneously in theaters and at home on April 10. Universal released "The Hunt" in theaters over the weekend while "The Invisible Man" and "Emma" both came out late last month. Costing just $7 million to make, "The Invisible Man" has already had a successful run in theaters, grossing $122.4 million globally in three weekends.
Universal said that by Friday recently released films like "The Invisible Man," "The Hunt" and "Emma" will be available for digital rental for $19.99 in the U.S., or the equivalent value in overseas markets. Paying the rental fee will allow customers 48 hours to watch the movie. In an even bolder move, Universal also said "Trolls World Tour" will open simultaneously in theaters and at home on April 10. Universal released "The Hunt" in theaters over the weekend while "The Invisible Man" and "Emma" both came out late last month. Costing just $7 million to make, "The Invisible Man" has already had a successful run in theaters, grossing $122.4 million globally in three weekends.
20 bucks? (Score:3)
$20 for a one-time rental?
They just can't hold back, can they?
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But only need 1 ticket now for family and friends.
You're lucky you can still invite friends.
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You're lucky you can still invite friends.
It's fine as long as they are dressed in surgical
gowns and stay at least two meters apart.
And no touching.
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Movie, what movie, I stream content advertising free (apart from in content placements), is it available on my streaming service, does it exist for me, maybe on my next on rotation streaming service, meh.
What's on at the cinema doesn't really exist for me anymore, canned content, I can get that at home. Live interactions are what counts when you go out now, it's the digital age, canned content is for at home or on a mobile device.
Out and about, it's let's do it live and put the canned content in your pocket
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Out and about, it's let's do it live
And get arrested for not social distancing.
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$20 for a one-time rental?
They just can't hold back, can they?
I was hoping for a matinee price. Isn't $20 more than the price of the Blu-ray when it comes out?
I still have a ton of movies and shows queued up on Netflix.
If you don't have it yet, you could just sign up, and get a free month.
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Seems reasonable to me. Taking a family of 4 to the moves cost $40+. (Plus any extras for ordering online, buying drinks or popcorn, etc.)
Even if you are only with one other person $20 seems like a pretty great deal.
Re:20 bucks? (Score:4, Funny)
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Na, theaters are safe right now. They are completely empty.
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Wait, they charge you MORE to order online?!
We usually get a DISCOUNT for ordering online. They want us to do it, it cuts down their staffing costs and lets them harvest some data about you.
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Their product, their price. They can test that and see if people will pay.
Other movies just released can be at the same price. Experts can track if the price did not result in sales and adjust global prices as needed.
People are free to wait longer for the price to drop.
Free to watch an older movie at a lower price.
People have the freedom not to rent a new movie.
Are free to support a new movie they like by renting now.
Welcome to the f
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$20 for a number of remakes and god-awful social issue movies? If they made some good movies, or hell, even a Transformer or superhero movie, perhaps they'll see some success, but even those have been 3-4 years.
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I don't know where you live, but around me it's about $17 for 2 adult tickets at the movie theater. I have 2 teens that count as adults, and one child still young enough to count as a child, so it's usually ~$40 for tickets for all of us go to the movies. Combine that with concessions and it's a lot more expensive. I would guess that this price is based on what they probably make for ~4 tickets?
Now, the only movie they have out right now that anyone in my family would want to see is Emma, and that would jus
Twenty bucks, huh? (Score:2)
In my city, 1st run shows are between 8 and 12 dollars. ...hmmmm.
On the other hand, no crowds, no kids, no rip off prices for food...
On the third hand, I can wait a day and find it online for gratis from the usual underground sources.
Decisions, decisions...
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In my city, 1st run shows are between 8 and 12 dollars.
Well duh, you just get together a bunch of your friends and watch it tog... oh. Never mind, I got nothing.
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You clearly live alone. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
They've Got To Be Kidding (Score:2)
At $19.00 that's more than an Adult Read3D full price ticket; epic fail.
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So not cost effective for one person. For a couple it's close to parity, and a clear win if you tend to buy popcorn. Family of 3+, no contest.
Make it so... (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, I get the high price. However, the question is: are we going to get the actual quality warranted by that price?
A 4K stream is not the same one as what we see in a cinema, even when the cinema itself is digital. Even a regular 4K bluray is more than 100Mbits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], and I do not know any streaming service offering such rates.
So we lose positional audio (Atmos, DTS:X), most of color fidelity, and get blocks, and still pay the cinema prices? It does not make sense.
Please do really offer the service. Even keep the price you want, but give us a consistent 128Mbit stream, minimum.
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A 4K stream is not the same one as what we see in a cinema, even when the cinema itself is digital.
On the other hand, the cinema experience doesn’t include a “pause” button if you suddenly crave some popcorn or need to go to the bathroom during a really important scene.
I haven’t been to a movie theater in more than a decade. I also am not particularly interested in these particular movies. However I do applaud them for trying this, and I don’t think the pricing is unreasonable when compared to the cost of going to the theater.
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However I do applaud them for trying this, and I don’t think the pricing is unreasonable when compared to the cost of going to the theater.
It's not terrible for a family or a group of friends. It's a bit much for one or two people.
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Okay, I get the high price. However, the question is: are we going to get the actual quality warranted by that price?
A 4K stream is not the same one as what we see in a cinema, even when the cinema itself is digital. Even a regular 4K bluray is more than 100Mbits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], and I do not know any streaming service offering such rates.
So we lose positional audio (Atmos, DTS:X), most of color fidelity, and get blocks, and still pay the cinema prices? It does not make sense.
Please do really offer the service. Even keep the price you want, but give us a consistent 128Mbit stream, minimum.
I prefer 1080p Blu Ray over streamed 4k.
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I prefer 1080p Blu Ray over streamed 4k.
This.
A high quality 1080p BluRay (e.g. The Martian, Skyfall) looks much better than a streamed 4K.
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A 4K stream is not the same one as what we see in a cinema
True, the stream is going to be a lot better quality than the cinema. No out of focus camera, full control over the volume, better colour and contrast/HDR if you have a nice OLED set. Plus your choice of image enhancement options, personally I like a small amount of motion enhancement in 24 fps movies.
Oh and no annoying other people or sticky chairs to ruin your experience.
It's a trade off but one that I'd happily make.
$20 is a great price (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you live all by yourself (which, yeah, this is /., so I imagine that's most likely the case for most people around here), $20 is actually a GREAT deal.
It can cost my family $40+ to go to a movie. That's even before extras like ordering the tickets online or drinks or popcorn. $20 for a new movie is a steal.
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It typically costs me more than $20.00 to go to the movies by myself with drink and snack, so overall not a bad deal. It would be nice if the trial run of this had any shows I actually would be interested in watching.
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I wonder if that's true now. This site is 22 years old, many of the regular posters have been around for a while. A lot of us seem to be married.
Theaters are dinosaurs (Score:2)
This is a good thing
And no, it's not expensive considering the total cost of going to a theater, especially if more than one person watches it
Is this a tipping point to make theatres redundant (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a lot of potential tipping points for all sorts of 'business as usual' activity that this global lockdown is pretty much forcing.
I wonder whether this move will make movie producers question even further, whether keeping movie theatres running at a large scale is worth it?
Sure, independent cinema should always be an option - but with home theatre systems so advanced these days, do we really need to go to see a movie on a big screen for all movies?
This may just be the point at which the big movie producers and the public at large find they don't miss the experience anymore.
When it's not available for some weeks or months, how much will we miss it?
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When it's not available for some weeks or months, how much will we miss it?
Rural dwellers unserved by any cable or fiber Internet provider are left with slow, capped satellite Internet. The same is true of people living in certain parts of Seattle, Washington, which is notorious for its Director's Rules red tape that impedes utility improvements. In the time before the pandemic, they could circumvent this by driving into town to watch a movie in a cinema.
Re: Is this a tipping point to make theatres redun (Score:2)
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Most people have a TV on their wall, with HD capabilities. They don't have a 50 inch+ 4k UHD widescreen with a full surround speaker system. Going to the theater is still a superior experience for the average person, so once the coronapanic does down we can expect to see the release cycle return to normal.
Terribly balanced audio (quality and volume). Ever increasing amounts of ads before the movie (seriously the last movie I went to had 30 minutes of ads starting at the advertised movie start time). Ridiculously overpriced snacks/drinks (and the popcorn is universally bad). Damaged screens in theaters older than a few years. Common image focus issues. Other people (crowded, talking, lit up phones, etc..). Unclean (from all the slobs that just leave their trash everywhere).
Yeah... Soooooo much better for the
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It may be possible to replicate the True Cinema Experience(TM) at home, though if you don't have children of the right age it can be expensive to hire teenagers to sit nearby and discuss the plot in over-loud whispers - the exact cost depends on how much/how little candidates teens like the given movie.
Overpriced popcorn can easily be obtained simply by sending someone from the household to the local movie house to buy some. Take out service is still permitted in many areas.
Of course, with everybody watchin
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I don't even like surround audio. It's a gimmick and you're still watching it on a two dimensional medium. I have two speakers and run them through a studio compressor so dialogue is audible and music and action scenes no longer cause hearing damage.
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This could see a lot of changes. E-sports could become even more popular. The big subscription sports channels are in trouble as many sporting events and even whole leagues are cancelled. They are talking about writing off this year's football season and the Olympics are under threat.
It's looking like bad news for physical shops too. Working from home will get the biggest trial it's ever seen at many companies. I see a lot of contract work is now remote.
Take that, Invisible Man! (Score:1)
$20 for a 48-hour rental! What a BARGAIN! (Score:1)
Boy, other folks have been eviscerated for price-gouging in the virus era. This is 3x the price of their regular rentals. It's about the same price as a "you can keep and view forever" blu-ray.
$20... for a rental! With no theater with which to split the costs.
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It's an experiment, they're seeing what the market will bear. You're not being forced to do this. You can wait for the Blu-ray or it's appearance on the other platforms, or you can pony up the $$$ to watch it now.
If it's a roaring success, it merely shows people are prepared to pay the asking price.
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$20... for a rental! With no theater with which to split the costs.
Don't let your jaw hit the floor when you read this [bloomberg.com].
That article is just three months old and I'm sure you'll agree a lot has changed since. Hollywood is in complete disarray now, do they just shelve all their AAA movies and wait it out? Can they pivot from cinema to home cinema the way music pivoted from CDs to streaming? This is a forced experiment because box office returns will be in the shitter and they need to know if they can live without them or not. But it could also be that this is the break they'
will that be on cable VOD as well? (Score:2)
will that be on cable VOD as well?
Compressed all to Ratshit (Score:2)
For that price it should be a proper BluRay download with a proper hi-definition multitrack audio, meaning about 50GB. If is it not that then it is not worth it.
Free Music (Score:2)
A number of concert halls and opera companies are giving free access to their streaming services - https://www.theguardian.com/mu... [theguardian.com]
I watched the Vienna State Opera version of Das Rheingold last night, the only thinkg I missed were sub-titles.
$19 is very reasonable (Score:2)
OK, a bit high if you are single.
But you have a family of 4 it's half the price of theater tickets (non-3D, but we 3D at the theaters because it is cool on the big screen, so 40%).
Oh, and the family of 4 doesn't go to many movies because the add ons are so expensive ($100 outing if we don't smuggle candy in, but we need popcorn and soda).
We own an MMA gym and regularly get the UFC (ESPN+ sucks, so less regularly now). 5-6 people split the cost, getting it down to about $10. The same could apply here, invi
World is changing now (Score:2)
This is a reaction to the corona virus, i suppose? Where theathers are closed or at least people are discouraged to pack together for a few hours in a room because of it.
The corona virus is changing the world faster then any other scientist or climate activist ever could. Even after the pandemic is over, the world will be forever changed.