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MOVIE THEATRE RELEASES AND CONSUMER SALES/RENTINGS Once a Movie is completed, the Movie Studio first Release s the movie to Movie Theater s, typically opening the movie as widely as possible (over 3000 screens for the largest blockbusters), and backed by a very widespread and expensive television advertising campaign. Attendance for an attractive movie is typically highest in the first week of release, and drops substantially with each successive week. Movie theaters pay a percentage of movie ticket sales to the movie studio as the film rental fee. This percentage can be as high as 90% for certain Blockbuster movies, and the percentage drops with each successive week the movie is shown; the average percentage due to the movie studio is about 55%. This differs from the practice decades ago in the United States, when a movie was released in a few dozen theaters and spread after receiving good "word of mouth" and good reviews, moving around the country for several years. After the movie's theatrical run is almost completely spent, the movie is introduced for sale and rental to consumers, on VHS and DVD . For about six weeks, this is the only way potential customers can watch the movie. ON TELEVISION After the six-week protected window on video, the movie is shown on Pay-per-view stations (both on Cable TV and Satellite TV ) for a period ranging from 2 weeks to 3 months. The studio receives around 50% of the resulting income. After this exclusive period, the movie is shown on premium pay TV channels, like HBO and Showtime . The movie studio receives a fixed payment based on the movie's previous performance in theaters, averaging from US$6 million to US$8 million, and reaching US$25 million for some blockbusters. After about 18 months of showing on premium pay TV channels, the movie appears on network television or on a basic cable channel (like TBS , TNT , or USA Network ) for 12 to 18 months, or in some cases for several years ( ABC and its affiliate networks currently have 10-year broadcast rights to '' Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone ''). The network typically pays from US$3 million to US$15 million, depending on the movie and the number of runs. After the network television runs are complete, the movie goes into playout runs on cable before entering Television Syndication for broadcast and/or basic cable television, receiving payments based on the size of the market that sees the movie, and ranging up to US$5 million in the largest markets. In most cases a theatrical film will bypass pay-cable runs for broadcast television because the cost of running these films may be too expensive for such networks as HBO , Showtime , and Starz to run. For example, in the early 1990s, Universal Studios pieced together a package of films for pay-cable networks to acquire. After these networks passed due to its tremendous cost, Universal allowed CBS to acquire the package, thus these films went from pay-per-view cable directly to broadcast television (with obvious edits made due to network standards). Many recent Disney animated films (such as '' Lilo And Stitch '' and '' Mulan '') have also bypassed pay-cable runs and have gone directly to broadcast television (in this case, ABC). On very rare occasions a film will bypass pay-per-view and go directly to broadcast television. In 2000, '''' bypassed pay-per-view and went straight to HBO for its standard pay-cable run. INCOME According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO , only about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view). DIRECT-TO-VIDEO See Also: Direct-to-video ''Direct-to-video'' (also known as ''straight to video'' or ''direct-to-DVD'') is a term used to describe the release of a film in home video formats (such as VHS or DVD) without being shown in movie theatres beforehand. Films released direct-to-video are expected to be lower in technical or artistic quality than theatrical releases. This has led to direct-to-video being used in a derogatory way to describe films (especially sequels) which are not expected to be successful. Examples of movies released direct-to-video include '''' (from Fox ) SEE ALSO |
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