locutus12 said:
....
personally if they just gave us the D.V.D movie without all the utter crap (directors commentary, ect ect) in a standard dvd case with minimal packaging and charged £5 to £7 for the film, they would knock the bottom out of the illegal trade, but as it stands, they wont budge on the £15 to £25 they charge us now, so it will continue untill they give the people what they want.
I'm sorry, but that's just naive.
First, the "utter crap" costs next to nothing to add, so don’t think removing it is going to change the cost much, because it won't, and if it doesn't change the cost, it can't change the price.
Secondly, if all movies were released at £5 to £7, you'd knock the bottom out of the production of films too. Why? Because movie pricing is dynamic. It has to be. Movies get released in a controlled way, to premium markets first, simply because that's what generates maximum revenue and people making movies are, believe it or not, there to make money, not provide a social service. So you release to the highest revenue generators first, moving down the line as demand from high revenue generators to lower as demand at higher levels wanes. The highest revenue generators are cinemas, so films will stay in cinemas at premium rates for just as long as they can keep putting bums on seats. Then, it goes to pay-per-view, then premium cable channels (HBO, Sky Movies, etc) and so on, down to the point where it hits first premium DVD releases and ultimately to the discounted releases.
But in all of that, you have VERY high upfront costs to recover, and then the various costs of distribution (be it the staff that run cinemas or the packaging and marketing costs of a DVD release). So, you not only have to fund those variable and ongoing cost of sales, but you also have to provide enough return for investors that they are prepared to risk the millions, tens or even hundreds of millions that it costs to make the film in the first place.
If you don't maximise revenue, you either can't pay for those costs at all, in which case the money people don't risk their money and movies won't get made, or you INCREASE the price of budget releases.
Let me run that past you again.
Because films are released to sectors in order of decreasing revenue, it is precisely the people that ARE prepared to pay £15, £20 or whatever, or are prepared to pay full whack at the cinema, that are funding the eventual release at £5 or £7, which is where a lot of DVD releases end up
eventually. If those high revenue generators aren't there, then a large chunk of that up-front cost would not have been recouped by sales to them, and that means that the price of the budget release would have to go up to recover those costs.
Instead of moaning about films being released at premium rates, you ought to be praising it, because it means that all you have to do to pay much less is
wait a bit.
Or, perhaps, do you mean you want the movie at rock bottom cost, right after it comes out of the cutting room? Sorry, but that's why it's naive. The industry simply doesn't work like that, because
it can't. It isn't about "giving the people what they want". It's about economics. Film finance simply doesn't work the way you want it to work, and if you insist on initial retail prices at the price level you want, you aren't going to get many, if any, major film releases.
Investors put money into films because they expect to make money from it. Paybacks can be very big. So can the losses. But financing any film means putting very large sums of money into a highly speculative enterprise, knowing full well that it's going to be a couple of years before you see any payback at all, if indeed you do see a payback. And you're starting a major undertaking without any real guarantees as to what it's going to cost. A film initially budgeted at $50 million could end up coming in at $70 million ....., or more. So you end up committed, because if you run out if money part way through, you either have to raise more (which dilutes the initially predicted returns and increases the risk), or you have to bin the money you've invested so far. So either the people that stumped up the initial $50m have to dig in their pockets for more, or you need new investors and those new investors know the production has hit problems, so they want a good deal because the perceived risk level is that much higher. And what happens if your expensive investment bombs at the box office?
Movie pricing is what it is because it has to be. And you have a choice. Buy on initial release and pay a premium, or wait a few months until the price drops … because it will. But what you can’t have is cheap movies straight away, just on the basis that it’s “what the people want”. They aren’t going to get it.
