Morgan Freeman And Intel Announce Plans (Again) To Release Movie In Theater And Online (Again)
from the about-time dept
For all the talk of Mark Cuban's experiment earlier this year with launching a movie on DVD and in theaters on the same day, it's an idea that's been tossed around for a while. In fact, nearly three years ago, Morgan Freeman's production company (with Intel) announced plans to release his next movie online and in theaters at the same time. However, it's been pretty slow in coming. A year and a half after that announcement, nearly an identical announcement was made by Morgan Freeman and Intel. So, now, a year and a quarter after that, we find that (hmm...), Morgan Freeman and Intel are again announcing plans for an exciting new effort to release a movie online and in theaters at the same time. At least this time, the movie and release date are actually named -- though, the plan has changed a bit. It's not really "at the same time." To appease a few theaters, the download will be available two days after it hits the theaters. It's still not clear if there will be extra incentives to get people who download the movie to go see it in a theater, but you can be sure that plenty of theater owners will once again get upset about this plan all over again.
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by Riggs on Oct 12th, 2006 @ 6:11pm
awesome that means when we download movies from theater we dont have to listen to everyone laugh at the funny parts or that guy walking infrount of the hidden camra
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Re: by Bee on Oct 12th, 2006 @ 7:13pm
lol.
yeah, anxiously awaiting the *actual* release of the movie on the internet.
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More Power To 'Im by Cleverboy on Oct 12th, 2006 @ 8:03pm
Go Morgan, go Morgan! Anywho, --given the way the studios rape theatres for the box office returns during the initial release weeks, its no wonder why theatres are less than thrilled that their product might be rotting on the vine before they even have a chance to start reaping their reward. One thing that its on BitTorrent... something else that numbers of people have access to an immediately available prestine source to pull from. We all know who DRM is for, and its not for the pirates (who regularly practice and discuss their DRM breaking layups and foul shots on a daily basis).
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by Anonymous Coward on Oct 12th, 2006 @ 8:20pm
The linked article says two weeks between theater and internet release, not two days.
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Re:linked article says two weeks between theater a by OperaFan on Oct 12th, 2006 @ 9:43pm
Anon,
Two weeks is still a significant improvement, by several weeks. IIRC, the quickest post-theater DVD release was 8 weeks... Keep in mind, I'm talking about a quality film here... not some straight to DVD mess that should have never been made.
Another issue to consider is that films require theater release to qualify for award nominations, and that will be a scramble for Internet films, should any of them get that far.
Let's be hopeful here. Morgan Freeman/Danny DeVito definitely have the industry juice to influence change.
I saw an article last week that quoted George Lucas indicating that even he was feeling postive about a near simultaneous DVD and/or Internet release of feature film, he believes that the era of massively budgeted major films is over.
I'll try to dig up the full Lucas article, I can't remember if the publication was online (yes, I still read paper publications). Here's a snippet: http://broadcastengineering.com/news/george_lucas_big_picture/index.html
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All they have to do... by Sanguine Dream on Oct 13th, 2006 @ 5:36am
is the same thing that any traditional business model does when it is threatened...sue for copyright infringment.
/sarcasm
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10 Items or Less by Chronno S. Trigger on Oct 13th, 2006 @ 6:50am
in the article it refers to the low-budget movie, 10 Items or Less. I looked it up and even the people that have already seen the final product don't think its any good "This felt like it was still a sketch or a work in progress" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499603/
Even if this had a good plot to it why would I want to see this on the "Big Screen" when I can just download it and watch it on the small screen. Do this with the next X-men or Spiderman movie and then we can see if the theater is still a draw.
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