The movie studios these days seem to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off. On the one hand, they’re worry about the supposed trend of declining 3D ticket sales and on the other hand, they’re eager to shrink the theatrical to home video window. So which is it guys? Do you want people to go to the movies or stay at home?
Anyway, Summit Entertainment announced today that Duncan Jones‘ “Source Code” will hit VOD on July 8th two weeks before the DVD/BluRay release on July 26th. The studio says, “it will test the demand for viewing a bigger budgeted film digitally prior to the release of physical discs.” Meanwhile, movie pirates everywhere are rubbing their hands with glee.
Movie piracy is still a massive issue and we think before studios start going to the digital, streaming route they need to seriously investigate how to put on cap on their movies getting ripped. Paramount has stayed out of the premium VOD talks because of the issue and with good reason. High quality rips of movies from pay-per-view and/or VOD can be easily found online already. That said, how much piracy does or doesn’t affect the bottom line seems to be a number no one knows for sure and “Source Code” on VOD early will definitely give some interesting data to the Summit Entertainment marketing department. But putting it on digital outlets early, just seems like a surefire to way to shrink already shrinking video sales.
Anyway, interesting times ahead in the streaming versus physical format wars and with cloud services now on the way (Apple launches iCloud on June 6th) the days of DVD cases look to be on their way out. [via Deadline]
`keep doing your part folks, they are starting to crack under pressure.
movie makers: meet your future model:
http://www.thetunnelmovie.net/
@piratebay rip
Unless this is some joke which I don\’t get, it\’s odd that you don\’t even check your namesake website for some numbers.
Source Code torrent = 5000 seeders, 2000 leechers
Priest torrent = there\’s a number of them. Roughly 3000 seeders, 2000 leechers.
Pirates 4 = another bunch of ones put together… roughly 9000 seeders, 5000 leechers.
Yes there\’s more for Pirates, but a number of those different torrents (even the ones that have tons of seeders) are likely fakes.
Not too shabby for Source Code.
We\’ll split the difference: drama, with scifi elements.
Still say anybody interested already saw it in theaters. Who the hell would want to pirate it? Older women don\’t pirate movies.
Do you even know about Duncan Jones? He does not make movies for \’older women\’. Also, no movie is seen by its entire potential audience during theatrical release, they all expand their audiences on video, especially a sleeper hit like this.
Source Code is a sci fi thriller, not a drama.
I have a hard time imagining there is some massive audience waiting to pirate… Source Code. Really? Pirates3 maybe. That Priest movie that is now out, maybe. That looks like teen boy homerun. But some Jake G drama?? Really? All the audience inclined to see such a thing probably saw it in theaters or else they have no interest and won\’t be interested in the DVD either.
While I am skeptical that piracy really takes that much out of the bottom line, nobody, including the author of this piece or the studio people, should suffer under the delusion that there is *anything* that can be done to stop ripping VOD streams. If the film is shown, it can be captured. Period. There is no technology that is going to stop, or even slow that.
Random thought: Have you ever compared the digital copy of movies (and downloaded iTunes versions) to the DVDs? Amazingly, they kinda suck. The colors are washed out and the compression\’s off the chain. I still buy DVDs for the best quality digital version on my computer, same way I still buy CDs for the best quality files.