Monday 24 June 2013

Is Hollywood reacting to movie piracy by charging MORE for theatre tickets?

It's not a bad idea.

Strap in folks, we're going to the movies...

Everyone is talking about this, where perhaps the best breakdown of events can be found in Time magazine.

In a nutshell, $50 got moviegoers a ticket to see the new Brad Pitt movie World War Z ahead of release, with the ticket money incorporating merchandise and a future download of the film.

A pretty package.

Is this a one-off promo? The film was delayed for some time, so little stunts like this generate a bit more hype (think: Daft Punk). If this was rolled out universally in the future, it could really interfere with kids going on first dates...

The real interest in this event as a news story stems from the timing: just days after Directors George Lucas and Steven Spielberg speculated over a new pricing structure for movies. Lucas, you may recall, was innovative enough to build an entire franchise around merchandise. He also champions an alternative release strategy for movies to cater for different audiences: releasing them in theatres and on home video on the same day.

So should listen to them? Hell yes. They know what they're talking about.

If less people can go to the movies and pay more, then not only does it counterbalance the revenues (at the minimum), but the people who do choose to go see new releases can (in principle) have a better time.

There's a million different options to listen to music now to cater for single-download demand etc., what's to say it wont work for movies?

Movie piracy is still a really big issue, especially in USA. It's no coincidence that the most pirated movies every year are the ones that aren't available legally elsewhere (hence Lucas' simultaneous release strategy). Shaking things up a bit, without making people like me with glasses wear another pair of glasses can only be a good thing.

It's all about innovation.

Speaking of which, prescription 3d glasses anyone?

Tweets @musicpiracyblog

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