Why People Don't Go To The Movies

Hooligans - Directed by Lexi Alexander

During the "78th Academy Awards," the president of the Academy (as well as Jake Gyllenhaal) made attempts to make it a point that the best way to see a movie - ANY movie - is to see it in the theaters. This fact is pretty true. There are a few problems with seeing movies in the theater though. The fact that buying the movie on DVD costs the same as two movie tickets, the fact that there is (at the moment) no real way to force people to turn off their cell phones and stop text messaging, but there is only one real reason that is keeping people away from the theaters: DVD's.

DVD's will not only cost you the same amount of money as two movie tickets will, but the DVD's come out so soon. Strangely enough, one recent movie that didn't make a huge box office smash may have proved the answer to getting people back in the theaters. The movie is called "Green Street Hooligans." The movie stars Elijah Wood of "Lord of The Rings" fame as Matt Bucker, who moves to London and gets introduced to the violent underworld of soccer hooliganism. Without spoiling too much of the story (which is something I personally hate), let's just say it is a dark and brilliant film. A bit on the controversial side, but still great. It's also not on DVD. This would not be strange if it were not for one little fact: This movie opened in theaters in May of last year. There is still no DVD announced, and the movie still rotates theaters around the country. Now keep in mind, this is not the greatest film in the world. It's very good, but it might not go down as a classic. But the lack of availability has had one huge effect on people: People are REGRETTING not seeing the movie in the theaters!

People have gotten so used to a movie coming out on DVD ninety days after it's theatrical release, that the fact that a movie that looked marginally interesting to them isn't on DVD is making people have second thoughts about passing it up when they had the chance to see it in theaters. Come May, it will have been a whole year since this movie was dumped into theaters. The same thing happened with another film (though to a lesser extent) called "The Greatest Game" ever played, which is coming out in June, but by then it will have been about six months since the film went to the theaters.

But movies like "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" - which went to theaters in November and came out on DVD in March - and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" - which came out in late December and will come to DVD in early April - have about four month time spans before the DVD release. This simply will not do. Does anyone remember the release of "Toy Story?" Remember how long that movie played in theaters? More then six months. The reason for this is because good movies tend to make money for long periods of time.

But there is another reason for this. In 1995 companies didn't feel terribly rushed to get their movies on VHS (I'm not completely sure if DVD was around at the time), so they would keep movies, even the flops, in theaters for a good amount of time. Then once the movie left the theaters it would be between three to five months before the movie showed up on video. This was genius because it meant that if you were interested in seeing a movie, you almost HAD to see it in the theaters, otherwise you'd have to wait almost a whole year before you'd have the chance to see it again.

Heck, if you really liked the movie, you'd see it multiple times because the wait for video could be so frustrating at times. These days whenever a movie comes out, big or small, seeing it in the theater is not a priority. "Brokeback Mountain's" and "Capote's" Oscar nominations didn't do a darn thing for their box office. Why? Well, when movies got nominated for Oscars people used to rush to the theater to see them. This year when the Oscar nominations were announced people just said "I haven't seen these movies, but I'll see them when they come out on DVD."

Heck, it's almost sad because people know there's no rush to see a movie in the theaters. They can buy it in a couple weeks, so why rush to the theaters. "Tears of the Sun" made big news when one week after it was released it theaters, it was announced to be coming to DVD in three weeks. It was a flop in the theaters, but it was a hit on DVD. This is the film that started the trend. This is the film that started the ruin of the theater business. A recent film has also proposed a dangerous idea, with a film called "Bubble," that went into theaters one week, where the studio released the DVD of the movie the same day, and on the following Monday aired the movie on HBO.

Words are not needed to express how stupid this move was. If this is the future of movie releases, then why go to the theaters at all? It would also help if the theaters would do a better job at handling their films. As much as I loved "King Kong," it does not need to be on four screens for the first three weeks of release in a theater of twelve screens. Here are some suggestions for the studio systems to help bring people back to the theaters:

1. All the studios need to come to a mutual agreement to have, at minimum, eight months between the films theatrical release and DVD release. Regardless if the film is a hit or miss with audiences, there needs to be a long wait between being able to see the films in the theaters and being able to buy them on DVD. Even movies that don't do good initially might make a lot of money if word-of-mouth is good enough (see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding").

2. Theater chains need to commit one movie to one screen. Yes, this means that not everyone will be able to see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on the first weekend (seeing as how it would be on one screen instead of three), but this is not a bad thing as people will most likely buy a ticket to another movie and come back a week or two later to see the film. Plus if people are REALLY serious about seeing a movie in the first week, they can use Fandango! Remember folks, Fandango is your friend, regardless how annoying you find their commercials to be.

3. There needs to be a contract when selling video rentals. One thing that is a dying art is re-releases. Let's face it, people love seeing an old movie for the first time on the big screen. The problem is re-releases don't make that much money anymore because when a movie is re-released, the first thing people do is go to stores and either rent it or buy it. There needs to be a contract that states when a re-release of a movie is announced, these stores need to forced to pull any copies of the movie still on sale and Blockbuster can't rent the movie until it comes out of the theaters.

Unfair? Maybe, but it's the only way to do this. Of course, studios also need to accept that while this tactic might help, re-releases of old movies won't make more money then the new movies, and thus they shouldn't waste $50 million on a huge marketing campaign. A modest $10 to $15 million would do just fine.

4. Hollywood needs to make DVD's of movies for a "limited time only." How is it that Disney continues to make tons of money of theatrical re-releases of old movies like "Cinderella" and "Beauty & The Beast?" Because when they produce the DVD's, it is only for ninety days, and then they wait an aditional ten years before re-releasing it. This strategy has helped create a constant flow of money for most of Disney's films. While movies like "Battlefield Earth" and "Fear.com" will never be in high demand, if you have a movie that has the potential to be a real classic, then you need to treat it as such. Let's take "Titanic" for example. This movie became an instant classic, and therefore re-releasing it in theaters every ten or fifteen years seems like a logical thing to do (kind of like "Gone With The Wind").

Of course, consider the fact that the "Titanic" DVD has been in production since 1998, and by the time a re-release comes to frutation, no one will care because the movie has always been available to them. If you've got something special, you need to pick up Disney's plan and produce the DVD for only three or four months, then take it out of production for ten or fifteen years, where you can re-release it to theaters and eventually HD-DVD for a whole new generation to appreciate it.

Now to some credit, what I've proposed would take a great leap of faith by the studios. But hey, I'm sure the studios wouldn't mind being able to make an extra $90 million or so on re-releasing the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy every ten years or so. The bottom line is that if you make the wait for DVD long, then people WILL come back to the theaters! They will because they have no choice. Don't let their complaints fool you, that they will boycott movies if they cn't buy the DVD within four months of the initial release. There was a time there was no DVD (or VHS even). Just remind them that a DVD IS coming, it just won't be for awhile! In the meantime, you can see it in theaters. Twice if the wait is too long (which is something many people used to do with movies they really liked).

Maybe with that in mind, people will also shut up and stop text messaging during the movie and actually watch it for once. Oh, and "King Kong" is coming to DVD in a couple of weeks...about four months after it came to theaters. Makes you want to scream doesn't it?

Currently Listening To: John Stevens - Red