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Promising News for the Moviegoer
posted by
Michael Zoldessy
on
July 19, 2006 at 12:44 pm
HOLLYWOOD, CA — The Movie Advisory Board took an exit poll of people that saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean film and it points towards a preference for seeing movies in actual theaters as opposed to at home:
Having measured the desire of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest moviegoers to see the film in- theater, the Movie Advisory Board, a joint initiative between Nielsen Entertainment and MovieTickets.com, announced today the results of a survey of over 1700 moviegoers who had seen Pirates from its opening through last week. 89% of Pirates theatergoers stated they would have still seen the film in a movie theater, even if it was available on the day of its theatrical release, either for sale or rental.
For all the statistics, visit the Full Report on Yahoo.
Comments (3)
First off, I’d like to see the results when it’s not the biggest blockbuster of the year (so far) they’re using as the poll’s reference film. What I’ve been reading of late regarding how ‘movie consumers’ will spend their discretionary film entertainment dollars indicates that though many home theatre owners will continue to go to cinemas to see films when simultaneous download/rental/DVD purchase happens, the films they’ll limit themselves to are the blockbuster type…such as ‘Pirates’. So if the film was ‘Clerks II’ or ‘Renaissance’ or ‘Peaceful Warrior’, would the result be the same? (Uh, no.)
Secondly, as much as I want to think this is generally a good sign, this kind of news, in fact, is of the ‘too little, too late’ variety. When you take a look at figures like these or these or articles like this.
Rose-coloured glasses on head-firmly-buried-in-the-sand viewpoints aside, the landscape is changing. And contrary to what some people here want to believe, this is not merely a question of a new technology attacking, as VCRs and then DVDs did in the past. The quantum shift here is the film industry going with simultaneous releases, allowing the market to determine business practices, not heart-warmed nostalgia or tradition. And as Hollywood et al do not care where the revenue comes from, the trend towards more and more home-viewing will continue until equilibrium has been reached…to be followed by a pendulum-swing back towards the big-screen experience…when all of us are in our retirement years.
Just add a couple of dittos to the above, plus the fact it will be waaayy after my retirement age!
Seems to me that this article should be re-titled “Promising News for Disney”. The only thing that can be inferred from this survey is that 89 % of the potential “Pirates” audience will flock to the theatres during the first weeks of release, given that the film is available in another medium at the same time. So there would be a relative low risk, and high financial incentive for Disney, if they decide to do that. This is good news to business strategists (not necessarily the “moviegoerâ€, unless you’re a “Pirates†fan), since it suggests that a theatrical saturation release for the third film can yield a big return early on, with a simultaneous DVD release.
JSA