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DVD Industry in Slump Just Like Movie Industry

This year's much heralded movie industry slump has been attributed to poor selection of good movies, and a theory that movie fans increasingly prefer to watch movies at home on video or DVD. But the home video industry is also in a slump, according to the Associated Press.

"Movie rental chain Blockbuster Inc. posted a quarterly loss Tuesday that was more than double Wall Street's forecast as lackluster new video releases failed to attract consumers," AP reported. "The largest U.S. home video and DVD rental company also said it was no longer on track to meet its 2005 financial forecast and said it has reached an agreement with creditors to waive certain debt covenants for the second and third quarters. Without the waiver, the company would have been in default, Blockbuster said."

Blockbuster lost a lot of revenue by eliminating late fees. The movie industry is now in its 19th week of decreasing audiences, which has spilled over into the home video market. Blockbuster officials say they don't expect the home market to get significantly better until the Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday season, AP reported.

Movie Industry's Biggest Money-Maker Is Television

"The best-kept secret in Hollywood, especially from Wall Street, is that the movie studios' biggest profit center is not theatrical movies, or even DVD sales; it is TV licensing," writes Edward Jay Epstein in Slate. Epstein is the author of The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. Forget the notion that box office sales are a big profit center to the movie industry, Epstein argues.

Disappointed Movie Fans Win Class Action Lawsuit

Ever wonder about effusive critical praise of a movie in an ad that inspires you to go see it? Suppose a critic declared an actor "this year's hottest new star," a movie "one hell of a scary ride," and a second movie "another winner"? You go see all three movies, and they turn out to be real dogs. What can you do? Well, a court in Los Angeles has ruled that you have been personally injured, and are entitled to a refund of $5, the price of your movie ticket (yeah, right). That is, if the critic who is quoted in the movie advertising never made the statements, doesn't work for the media outfit mentioned in the ads, and indeed, the critic doesn't even exist.

Netflix Bests Blockbuster Three to One in Rental of Movies Online

Netflix.com, the online-only movie rental service competing intensely with bricks-and-mortal national movie rental chain Blockbuster, is beating the older and more established brand more than three to one in rental of movies online. Profits at Netflix, nearly doubled in the second quarter of 2005, according to the Associated Press.

It's Hard to Get a Job in Film Nowadays

"With an entire generation that has grown up behind the lens of digital technology, the movie industry has become very competitive, filled with young directors trying to break into the business," Wired reports. With so many young people now familiar with the tools of filmmaking, and venues to post video clips online, the percentage of young people eager to pursue a life in the film industry has increased exponentially, meaning that more and more young people are competing for the same jobs. Film departments and schools have exploded, releasing more graduates to compete for industry jobs. While it's true that young people now have many online venues like Current TV and vlogs to show how talented they are, getting the attention of the powers that be is more difficult than ever, Wired says.

Europeans Filmmakers Seek to Compete With Hollywood, Online

With Hollywood dominating international movie distribution, European filmmakers are hopeful that they can cut into the market by distributing their films online. Twenty-five European culture ministers met at the recent Cannes Film Festival, and promised to explore issues surrounding the online distribution of movies, the BBC reports.

The web will be a huge new market for independent filmmakers, the culture ministers acknowledged. Filmmakers will be able to reach international audiences they never could before, online fan clubs will develop for online films, stars, and directors. "In Europe, as in other continents, the opportunities for people to enjoy films online are set to increase tremendously over the next few years," European Union media commissioner Viviane Reding told the BBC.

Moviemakers Create Weblogs for Most Zealous Fans

Hollywood is turning to weblogs to promote and market films. Ardent fans seem to be especially stirred up by blogs that take them on the inside of movie-making, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Lions Gate Films hosts several directors' blogs at LionsGateDirectors.com. Fox Searchlight Pictures created blogs for "Garden State" and "Club Dread." Kal Penn, star of "The Namesake," is blogging from the movie set in New York.

Movie blogs "are slickly engineered to virally market their movies — to stoke fan ardor," writes Chris Lee in The Los Angeles Times. Blogs allow directors "to reach out to fans in an up-close-and-personal way."

Fans are fascinated by the minutiae of movie magic, says Michael Regina, editor of The One Ring Inc., a company that specializes in constructing movie fan sites. Blogs provide an almost real-time way to convey some of that. "If we're having a screening of the movie for fans, I think it's more fun to get on and tell them myself instead of having some official announcement," he told The Times.

Peter Jackson, director of the big-budget remake of "King Kong" (due out in December), keeps a video production diary on the fan website kongisking.net. He presents digital mock-ups and posts interviews with the stars, such as Naomi Watts. Kongisking.net's blog for Jackson has logged 100,000 downloads per week.

"X-Men" director Brian Singer, in production in Australia on a "Superman" remake for Warner Bros., posts a weekly video diary on bluetights.net — a site that is unaffiliated with the studio but for which Warner Bros. has bought additional bandwidth to support the increased Internet traffic. He describes the blog as "a mini TV show about the making of 'Superman,' " which is scheduled to open in June, 2006. "The studio websites [for movies] are a bit stagnant," Singer said. "They're just so traditional." According to Warner Bros., bluetights.net's blog is viewed 50,000 to 60,000 times a day.

• LionsGateDirectors.com
• kongisking.net
• bluetights.net

Batman, Cinderella Man Win Awards for the Best Movie Previews

The founders call it "the Oscars for the short-attention-spanned." At Goldentrailers.com, you will find the winners of the Sixth Annual Golden Trailer Awards. This year's winners are movie trailers for "Batman Begins"; "Cinderella Man"; "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"; "Stealth" and "War of the Worlds". The awards don't mean the movies are any good....

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