Hollywood may play hardball when Netflix tries to get new movies to its customers for cheap, but never fear. Next month, major studios including Warner Bros., Sony, Universal, and 20th Century Fox will team up with DirecTV to launch something called Home Premiere, which will allow consumers to view films on-demand that had stopped playing in theaters just two months beforehand. For the privilege of seeing such films as Unknown and Just Go With It from the comfort of their own homes, viewers will be charged a mere $30 for a two- to three-day rental.
This scheme may sound insanely greedy, but Hollywood thinks it could make sense to “audiences who aren’t making the trip to the megaplex because of the size of their families or the expense to hire babysitters or pay for food and other concessions.” Hopefully, this will all prove to be a step towards a future with shorter windows between theatrical and video-on-demand release and much lower rental fees, but then, Hollywood seems to relish taking very, very small steps towards any such new ventures.
(Variety via All Things D)
Published: Mar 31, 2011 05:16 pm