So some really interesting numbers have just come out. It looks like Hollywood has enjoyed a record breaking year as far as generated revenue goes. Profits from video sale are up 10%, and despite the fact that it was a really weak year for blockbuster films, box office totals were only down 1%. Here’s how some of it breaks down:
Total video revenue: $21 billion
Boxoffice revenue: $23.8 billion
Total revenue: $44.8 billion
Total US generated Revenue: $25.5 billion
Wow… those are some BIG numbers! So here’s my question for the mega geniuses over at the MPAA. With these kinds of revenue numbers, HOW THE HELL DO YOU JUSTIFY CRYING TO US ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU LOSE TO PIRACY!?!?!
OOOoooo… file sharing on the internet is killing the industry. Oooooo…. stuntmen are going hungry. Idiots.
I agree, Joseph. As an action/thriller movie addict, I was highly entertained last year with all the movies that came out: The Butterfly Effect, Hellboy, Van Helsing, Chronicles of Riddick, Spiderman 2, King Arthur, I Robot, Bourne Supremacy, the Grudge, Manchurian Candidate, the Village, Hero, Resident Evil 2, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Blade 3…they weren’t all worth buying the DVD, but I had a movie to look forward to seeing almost every weekend at the theater.
This year’s line-up is so disappointing relative to last year. I knew it was going to be bad when the first movie I saw in 2005, Alone in the Dark, made me want to get up and leave in the middle – which I never do. Constantine almost redeemed the year so far, but the only movies I’m looking forward to seeing in 2005 are Batman Begins, Land of the Dead, Serenity, Doom, and Underworld 2. Maybe Zu Warriors.
No monopoly present in theatrical distribution? Tell that to the American indie theatres who can’t carry certain “big-name” films because huge theatre chains have set up deals with movie companies where the chain is the only cinema that can carry that film within a certain radius.
My, how competitive! How open market!
Hey dude, privacy is wrong but I’d appreciate if a) they’d stop bullshitting me with their “Camera man will be out of work if you download xXx” and just state their case and b) I’d HAVE appreciated it if they had jumped on this sort of technology from the get go and work and “de-legitmaising” by also offering something better.
Clearly the issue is not the aggressiveness of their pursuit of privacy but their manner of carrying out? I would have thought that was obvious.
It is not piracy that is decreasing their profits, it’s low-quality movies, if they would release something original with a good story and director instead of releasing a Dukes of Hazzard remake they wouldn’t be losing money.
Further more, since these preachy ‘stop piracy’ ads are generally seen by the PAYING CUSTOMERS (the theatre cam people and DVD pirates seem not to include them on their illegal discs!), it is a bit insulting.
I second Warren in that it is the approach taken with these ads that is insulting…I’m sure Manny the Stuntman, and the Set-painter dude are more impacted job-wise by runaway production to Australia, Eastern Europe, Canada and New Zealand than they are about lost Theatrical/DVD revenue streams from internet piracy…
Any self-respecting film fan would not want these crappy theatre cam copies or dreadful-DVD encodes of special effects blockbusters which demand a big-screen viewing anyway…As for the small or limited releases, well, the Pirates don’t seem to bother with films like The Life Aquatic, 3-Iron, or Millions….
Insulting and talking down to your PAYING customer base is worse for business than bad pirated copies floating around cyberspace. The real problem are the big crime-syndicate piracy operations which often work from actual copies of the film and do good encodes for their DVDs…advertising in the cinema is not going to deter their multi-million dollar operations…Case in point…several stores were busted in Ontario recently for selling pirated copies of films, where the store wasn’t even aware that they were illegitimate because the quality of the packaging and DVDs were so good. Why doesn’t Hollywood spend their big anti-piracy dollars going after the international DVD piracy rings…?
Or better yet…get on with iMovie or whatever the flexible cinema equivalent of iTunes will end up being…people will pay a small amount of money to download a consistent quality liscenced film if they don’t feel they are being over-charged and over-limited with their ‘fair-use’ of the download.
/end rant.
I used monopoly in terms of price structure, mainly in dvd/video sales. Also, in SA, we do have a virtual monopoly on what gets brought into the country by our 2 big movie houses. So while I can buy a legitimate dvd pretty cheap and import it from another country, buying that dvd here can be pretty pricy.(Case in point: Simpsons season 1 goes for about R600 or $100 here, on amazon.com for about $26).
I don’t have a problem with the studios focusing on piracy, my problem lies in the way they target it. Attack it for being a crime(which it is), not in that it is causing them to collapse financially(which from the above figures, they clearly aren’t).
The word monopoly doesn’t appear because there IS no monopoly present in theatrical distribution, cable/pay-TV distribution, or DVD/VHS distribution. I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
It’s in any industry’s best interest to protect every revenue stream that is available to them. Studios and distributors would be engaging in bad business if they WEREN’T aggressively fighting piracy.
Jason, I don’t think many people think piracy is okay, but I am getting pretty sick and tired of having anti-piracy ads shoved down my throat every time I buy a dvd or watch a movie, every ad claiming that if piracy isn’t stopped soon, the movie business will collapse. Surprising how the words monopoly and price-fixing never appear in the ads.
Your header isn’t necessarily true. “Record profits” does not mean the same thing as “record revenue.” Plus, your tirade about losing revenue to piracy is pretty childish. Are you actually arguing that the film industry shouldn’t care how much money they’re losing to piracy because, in your opinion, they’re making “enough” money in other areas? That’s a remarkably simple-minded approach.