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]
