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Prima Cinema brings new releases straight to your home…for a minor fee
posted by
Michael Zoldessy
on
December 13, 2010 at 7:45 am
A California company, Prima Cinema, is rolling out brand new releases directly to your home for the cost of $500 in addition to a one time setup fee of $20,000.
Actually, as crazy as the price tag sounds, Prima Cinema, which has backing from Universal Pictures, as well as Best Buy, is probably the future. For a decade now, Hollywood has been inching closer and closer to simultaneous release of movies in theaters and home video, what’s called day-and-date. Some cable on-demand providers already offer limited day-and-date movies: Time Warner Cable charges about $7 to see indie flicks like I’m Still Here while they’re still playing at your local art house theater. Even for bigger pictures, the window between theatrical release and DVD release has been shrinking, and looks like it’ll be shrinking even more next year, when the major studios will supposedly be unveiling a new VOD window, between theatrical and DVD release, with a premium charge of around $20 to $30.
Read more in Entertainment Weekly.
Comments (3)
Our original world of cinema, as we once knew it, has all gone to hell in a hand basket… and the devil now has us by the short and curlies!
With a $20k installation fee, this system will only pay for itself afer viewing approximately 2000 movies, based on a $10 ticket price. Makes no sense until the price comes down, as it ultimately will.
Not just that – – there’s also a $500 rental fee in addition to the 20K install fee. If I was an exhibitor I’d be going to war with Universal – day and date releases that have been successful are few and far between (IFC has had a few that were minor successes, as has Magnolia). Exhibitors should be more militant, Paramount interestingly enough I read didn’t sign with Prima (I don’t think National Amusements who is a much smaller force now a days had much to do with it). I know Regal and AMC have/had a policy of not playing anything that showed day and date, it’s a good policy to have. Then again I like to think if your rich enough to afford a Prima Cinema, you’re probably well connected enough to get DVDs.