For a couple of years now, certain people have been postulating about the inevitable death of the movie theater going experience at the hands of the HOME theater experience. “Why would anyone go to the theater with all it’s annoyances when I can stay at home and watch a dvd on my 42′ Plasma TV with surround sound” is often the question that is asked. And… it’s a fair question.
But a couple of statistics have been coming out recently that challenge the apparent wisdom of those statements. First was the study that came out last month showing that people with significant home theater system are MORE likely to spend more time and money at the movie theater. I suppose that makes sense in one way, since people who put together decent home theaters are more likely to be bigger movie fans, and thus would go to the theater more.
But another surprising figure was just released recently. According to the IMDB, DVD sales are at their lowest in history right now:
The first quarter of the year was the worst ever for home video sales in the DVD era, Daily Variety reported today (Tuesday) as it cited a report by Video Business that sales fell 5.1 percent to $5.6 billion during the quarter. Rentals, however, were down only 1 percent. Nevertheless, executives of studio home-video units told the trade publication that business has picked up considerably in the second quarter and blamed a weak release schedule on the earlier downturn.
In a day where massive digital HD TVs, High Def formats and the best home sound systems in the history of mankind… more people are going to the theater, and home movie sales have droped. Odd.
Now, I’ve always said that NOTHING will replace for me the experience of going to the movies, no matter how good home theater stuff gets. But this is a bit of a surprise. So I put the question to you: “Why is movie theater attendance starting to climb and DVD sales dropping?”
The crappy movies that made the box office bomb in 2005-06 are now hitting the dvd market. This summer is going to make everything better again.
Only good Q1 DVDs released:
Borat
The Departed
Children of Men
Casino Royale
Summer blockbusters come out on DVD in Q4 (at least in time for the Christmas rush). Companies that rely on DVD sales should not be worried, it was just one bad quarter.
One reason DVD sales are down is that at this point the studios have released most of their back catalog (or at least the back catalog that will actually sell). They are now having to release more and more deluxe editions, special director’s cut editions, ultimate editions, etc. of old movies. The sixth edition of Terminator 2 on DVD just won’t sell as well as the first and second.
I also bemoan the fact that we see so many watered-down movie-only DVD releases, followed by a deluxe edition with special features usually a few months later. I think this is a consequence of DVDs became so mainstream. When the format was new, it was geared more toward movie buffs. Another effect of this is the fact that so many DVDs come in widescreen editions and pan-and-scan (“full”-screen) editions now.
Now, high definition DVDs should have been a great remedy to some of these problems. After all, now the studios can start releasing the back catalog again. A couple of problems are see with this are:
* The format war means many people are going to wait until a more clear winner emerges. This is taking awhile.
* There are some epic, special-effects laden movies that will look incredible in high definition. Many film fans will be happy to buy this again on HD-DVD or bluray, even if they already own them on DVD. But many other movies really weren’t shot with HD in mind and won’t benefit all that much. There’s honestly very little reason to buy a romantic comedy on HD-DVD or bluray if you already own it on DVD.
I think I know…
More people are going to the movies, pirating them on their cellphones and selling pirated DVD’s to their friends.
Therefore increase in theatre ticket sales and slump in legal DVD sales.
Tada :) Mystery solved :)
With a DVD collection ranging in the thousands & having finally replaced most of my aging VHS favorites & with the advent of HD-DVD & BluRay, why would I want to buy anymore DVD’s, if I’m just going to have to turn around & buy them again in HD?
Currently HD technology is still too expensive, but when it comes down to a reasonable price for a DUAL player, or one finally wins out over the other, I’ll nab one, a new 1080p HDTV, and pop the popcorn for a family night in.
Until then, I’ll just continue to rent or go to the $1 theater to see recently released movies with my family &/or friends.
I love movies, I have over 500 or so DVDs and I love going to the movies. Last year was one disappointing year for movies for me. I guess I am the typical male movie goer and other than a few cool action movies, there wasn’t much else for me to go see or want to see.
If I am typical, then that is why last year there was low turn out in the theatres. And since most people didn’t like the movies from last year, why would they buy the DVD 6 months later?
The cost of $35 – $40 for the hd-dvd and blueray dvds might have something to do with it. It’s cheaper to go to the movies again.
I’m with Matt and all the others who blame a weak release schedule. Late Fall is going to be expensive for those of us who collect movies on DVD.
There hasn’t been much to crow about in regards to DVD releases this quarter. Save for Borat, Casino Royale, and The Departed, I wasn’t really excited about much else. What I’m really sick of are these single-disc, bare bones releases which are followed 5 months later by 3-disc deluxe editions (Flags of Our Fathers for example). Just wait it out and release the big one. Very few people are going to pay $20 for just the movie.
From what I have heard, neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD have sold more than 1 million units yet (BR at 800,000 , HDDVD at about 750,000). Some of the poorer selling titles have sold as few as 300 units. So, I don’t think sales of these formats can be blamed for taking a slice of the DVD pie, though consumers may be slowing purchases to eventually make them on a new format instead of DVD.
DVD prices are bad and way to expensive, I won’t buy new DVD’s I don’t mind waiting a few months longer and picking up 4 new [released in the last 3-4 months] dvd’s at Blockbuster for $21.35 total with tax.. or I could spend the same exact price for a new one at any other store that sales DVD’s.
Does the sales number represent DVD only or does it include Blue Ray and HDDVD? Those two other formats are likely stealing some thunder from DVD. Also as other have said, possibly there’s just been a weak release period.
Or maybe people are just finding alternatives. On demand TV and internet based movie downloads are certainly going ot be cutting into DVD sales. I myself know that I hardly watch any new movies these days, in theaters or on DVD. I much prefer simply surfing the internet or playing video games to watching a movie. It’s all the same garbage anymore on films.
I hope the movie theater never goes away. The theaters are having a tough time with the movie-making corporations trying to reduce the time between realizing profits from the box-office release and the home-video release.
I LOVE the theater experience and hope we only get more theaters, not less. And I hope the studios stop being so greedy and give theater owners room to breathe before they become casualties of corporate greed.
Hoepfully people will never get tired of nasty seats, annoying cell-phone talking fellow-travelers and standing in line for too long to get into a theater. It’s worth it.
Just like the last poster said by now, people have caught up on building their library with classics with Star Wars etc. A larger percentage of sales now are of new titles. Most of the higher profile TV shows are out too. Perfect Strangers just isnt going to sell as well as the A-Team.
You have to take into account the fact DVD sales where artificially high for a long time as people replaced their VHS collections and older movies hit the format for the first time. Now that boom is almost over DVD sales will of course fall.
I honestly think there’s something to do with more *better* movies to see in the theater in the last few months than in the whole of 2006.. Just my 2cents. I’m not surprised, I personally have been going to the cinema more often in the last 3 months than in the last half of 2006. Not to mention PoTC is coming, Spiderman, Shrek. So far I have watched 300 in cinema, TMNT,.. er can’t remember what else. Been going to the movies almost every weekend now.
What good movies have come out on DVd lately? Wait til December when all of the Summer blockbusters come out on DVD… the sales will be insanely huge for that quarter.
DVD sales will be very big this Christmas season.
John, what figures are you using to state that theatre attendance is starting to climb?
Compared to 30 or 40 years ago, attendance hasn’t increased that much, if at all.
For example, although it’s not a definitive study by any strech of the imagination, it’s very interesting to look at the All-time domestic box-office list at Box-office Mojo which takes into account ticket price inflation. Recent blockbusters such as Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, & Spiderman aren’t even in the top 30 !!!
Also of interest, what many people consider the biggest box-office film of all time, Titanic, is only at #6 !!
These films have ‘apparently’ broken box-office records (and indeed they have, money-wise), but that doesn’t mean attendance is up. These records that keep getting broken are because prices aren’t 25-50 cents anymore (as they were 50-60 years ago), they average at around $8 to $13 now.
All theatres in my area (including the bigger chain theatres) have seen, on average, a steady 5-15% decline in attendance every year for each of the past 5 years.
I would like to believe that film-going is on the upswing, but generally it isn’t. This year may be different, because this summer looks like the best summer in many years (Spidy3, Shrek3, Pirates3 all in one month? that’s friggin’ insane!). It’s not because film-goers so much appreciate the experience, but because this summer has an anomolous amount of guaranteed blockbusters.
I don’t think dvd sales are in a decline so much as they’ve plateaued. From now one, the success of dvd’s will be dependant on the films themselves, as opposed to the ‘novelty’ that dvd’s had, up to a couple of years ago.
I agree with you, the theatre experience can never be replaced. Unfortunately that is not what actual attendance patterns in the past 10 years have shown. I wish it was different, but it isn’t.
I do think though, that digital-projection & Imax will help curb that pattern, unfortunately it’s very expensive (I’ve look into it for the theatre I run, yikes!). No new theatre-plex should be built unless they have at least either of these, otherwise it’s a waste of money.
I think the whole glitz of HT has lost some of its shine.
People can only buy so many movies and once you have gotten your favourites you realize you don’t hardly have time to watch them, never mind keeping up the new releases.
Plus gas prices are probably chipping away at disposable income too.
I rarely buy now and don’t rent as much because much of it is rehashing of previous releases.
Quick question here, where does it say ATTENDANCE is up in theatres? I understand sales of DVD being down, especially when chowder-heads release a title like “Flags Of Our Fathers” with NO FEATURES, NO SCENE SELECTION, and then put A FUCKING HYUNDAI AD at the beginning. Why the hell would I want to buy that?
meh. I used to love going to see movies in the theaters. Now I hate it. All the friggin talking and other annoying distractions INCLUDING putting 20 minutes of ads before a movie. again, meh.
Indeed. If some films aren’t all that great in the theater- or something you would prefer to see only once…why would you shell out 20 bucks for it when it isn’t even worth WalMarts bargain bin.
Also, there’s three notorius practices. One is dips. Love one film enough where you can shell out 30-40 bucks? You better darn well love it! But let’s say…oh who shall I pick on? I got it.
FLYBOYS! Here you have: 1) Stardard full screen/one disc 2) Widescreen/one disc. Both have audio commentary which mentions bonus extras/deleted scenes on a second disc, which isn’t there. Where is it? the 30 dollar deluxe edition, that’s where! Now, while some effort has been made to make the picture as good as can be…it was a lackluster picture.
Also, video rentals may be more suitable to DTV fare and then if the film catches on/gains following then folks will hunt for it in stores..or…wait until they can buy it previously viewed.
Another practice I despise is double dipping…but instead of MORE we get LESS. Or there are two movies on one disc…and you already HAVE one of them. Or the other one sucks.
Where are the DVD sales really booming? TV shows- such as 24, Shield and BattleStar, that’s where.
Finally…and I’ll be pelted with stones for saying it, but here goes: Once there was Beta.
Then there was VHS.
Then LaserDisc.
DVD rules…
until HDVD and BluRay start swarming the market, and we have to shell out $$ for our new libraries at the end. Darn it…now I have to get “Star Wars”, “Larwence Of Arabia” and “My Cousin Vinny” all over again….! Madness never ends- it’s an ongoing adventure.
I blame the Civil War of DVD Formats.
Who wants to buy a copy of a movie on a format you intend to outdate within a year? Granted you can play that movie on your HD or BluRay player, but who is buying one of THOSE before they really see an outcome.
Computer sales saw a dramatic decrease in sales just before Windows Vista was released. Poor title release schedule? No.
Poor technology release planning.
Give us ONE next gen format (that is affordable – Thank you Walmart) and end the civil war. Done. DVD sales will resume.
I used to love a trip into town every monday to get a copy of the latest dvd releases of movies I had seen at the cinema several months earlier but nowaday its different. I’ll watch the movie in the theatre and by the time it comes out now I have normally lost interest especially when i realise that i am going to be watching it at home on dvd.
As the slogans in cinemas have said “its the experience that counts” and i think thats very true for me now.
I’m a huge movie buff, but aside from something really special, like the Increadibles or Batman Begins, I’m not willing to pay more than ten bucks for a movie DVD.
When I see movie DVDs for sale at Costco for almost 20 bucks, I think : that’s not worth it.
I think this is a snap-shot — a moment in time. That plays to the “weak release schedule” re: dvd’s. So I think that this is more of a supply and demand sort of situation.
Going to movies is also a reflection of the times. It could be that people are less likely to turtle now then they were, say in 2001 during the dvd boom — which happened to correspond to 9/11 which happened to correspond to massive turtle-ing.
It seems that the studies are relying on DV to make up for the poor mainstream stuff, in terms of revenue. A lot of the DV (IMHO) is 3rd rate crap — there are some good reasons why they weren’t released theatrically. People are catching on, me thinks, that things like American Pie: Band Camp and it’s DV brethren are for the most part (with some notable exceptions) crapola.
Or maybe not…