Home Premiere, the controversial attempt to bring brand new movies to the video-on-demand market, has now launched on DirecTV. And some big-name, well-known filmmakers aren’t too happy with the whole idea of this premium VOD.
Home Premiere
Home Premiere is Hollywood’s attempt at a premium VOD offering that was first mooted in September 2010 but was officially unveiled at the beginning of this month.
The service would see brand new movies fresh from theaters offered for rental for $30-a-pop. Rather than the four months’ window currently given over to movie theaters, failing releases would be offered on the Internet just 60 days after they debut.
DirecTV is the first distributor to offer Home Premiere, and it launched the service on Thursday (April 21). On the same day a collection of well-meaning filmmakers publicly raised objections to the nature of the scheme.
Filmmakers Object
The filmmakers against Home Premiere include Michael Bay, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Roland Emmerich, Peter Jackson, Jon Landau, Shawn Levy, Michael Mann, Todd Phillips, Brett Ratner, Robert Rodriguez, Gore Verbinski, Robert Zemeckis. Phew. And that is only about half the total that have signed the letter of objections (reprinted in full on Dark Horizons).
There is some great talent there, and these people truly love cinema and believe in the power it possesses. They don’t want to see what is essentially an art form degraded in any way, don’t want to see movie theaters going out of business, and don’t want to assist illegal movie piracy.
There is a flipside to all these arguments, the main one being that we cannot halt the march of technology. However, Home Premiere isn’t just utilizing a new technology, it’s also changing the way the movie business has worked for decades.
Conclusions
I admit I hadn’t really thought about all the implications has for the movie industry. If not immediately, then eventually.
I did previously note that this could mean “going to the theater may therefore become a thing of the past for all but the most ardent movie lover,” and that is obviously the dystopian future these directors and producers aren’t keen on seeing happen. And who can blame them, really.
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