For a while they tried what’s become known in the industry as the “theater” model. It was based on the way that stage plays used to make money. Basically, you only show the movie in one physical location at a time, and you don’t allow people to go there unless they first pay ‘admission.’
But This fell apart rather quickly. Nobody likes to be forced to go anywhere to buy a product, let alone consume it.
I have a few suggestions:
An ad-based model, in which the user implicitly agrees to accept a certain amount of “product placement” in exchange for free content. The products in question might appear as props within the movie itself, or in the form of a 300×250 that would float near the main character’s face until clicked upon. Each scene in the movie could represent one ad impression, and the studio could price according to act (I, II, or III), whether the ad appears before or after the climax, a happy or sad part of the movie, etc.
An “extras” model, where the content is given away for free, but if you pay for it, then you get something special, like a T-shirt with the name of the movie on it. It might even be a production crew t-shirt, as if to suggest that you sort of helped make the movie retroactively.
A premium level of viewership. At the free level, the resolution of the movie is lower quality, and gets interrupted periodically with a nag screen. At any point, you can choose to upgrade, and then watch the rest of the movie in peace.
This last option may also be tested out with different types of “lower quality” films. The screenwriter can lower the quality of the story by softening character motivation, inserting obvious anachronisms, and cheapening the dialog with references to pop culture. Viewers can watch this version first, and then decide whether they want to upgrade to the premium version, which would have strong arcs, a solid mis en scene, and witty repartee.
Editor’s note: If you haven’t read about Kari before, some of her further adventures are being discussed here.
I met Kari Ferrell six years ago, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. She was sixteen then. She almost got killed trying to save a kitten from getting run over by a mail truck. The truck swerved and the driver shouted. Kari stayed there, kneeling in the street, holding the kitten to her face and sobbing. I helped her up and offered to walk her home. She kept the kitchen clutched in her arms. A few steps later, she named it Mahatma.
We hadn’t made it past Pike and Broadway before some heroin-chic suburban high-school dropout accosted us and asked us for spare change. The kid walked alongside us, muttering some ridiculous story about lung cancer. Kari stopped, opened her purse, and gave the homeless kid everything she had, which looked like it amounted to about two hundred dollars. When I realized what was happening, I tried to stop her, but the scammer had already taken off. (I saw him in line later at Dick’s, waiting on a hamburger.)
As we walked on, I stole glances at this beautiful kid walking beside me. She had so much heart, so much potential. She could be anything, really. But I also knew it wasn’t going to be long before the cold cruel world swallowed her up. I figured I’d do something nice for Kari, while I still had her in my orbit.
“Do you like movies?” I asked her.
“I’m not allowed to see any,” she said. “I’m being raised on a commune run by a sociey that hates all technology. I just ran away yesterday, because it finally got unbearable when –”
“Oh, shaddap,” I said, giving her a friendly smack on the back of her round little head. “I’m gonna teach you a few things, kid.” Read the rest of this entry »
It used to be that I would see trailers for a movie like Watchmen and ask myself: Will I like it? A second career in marketing has changed that question to: Will I pay for a ticket?
Hollywood studio heads are not worried about whether audiences like their movies. They are worried only about whether audiences will pay for tickets to see their movies. Hipster pseudo-intellectuals everywhere are already in heated debates about whether the Watchmen movie is a success; I hear the arguments raging in coffee shops, bars, and the subway. But one thing that all these passionate people have in common – and I can tell this is true just by listening – they have already seen the movie, even though it was released less than 48 hours ago.
In other words, they paid for the right to make the judgement.
But as far as the studio is concerned, that payment was the judgement.
I’m pretty good at determining, just from trailers, whether a movie is going to be worthwhile, from an aesthetic or entertainment point of view.
But what about from a value-of-having-watched point of view? Sure, I don’t have to pay to see Watchmen. So one might argue that if I’m really positive that I’ll dislike it, I shouldn’t have to bother seeing it.
But what about the social cost of not seeing it? If I buy the ticket, then I have also bought the right to an opinion, and who knows how useful that could turn out to be? Who can say how awkward it would be for a geek like me – who everyone expects to have already seen Watchmen by now – to sacrifice that meager social currency?
What this world needs is a conversation around the refusal to consume.
James Joseph Cialella apparently shot a man for talking during a screening of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button on its opening day. Upon hearing this, I had three thoughts in quick succession:
Why couldn’t this guy have come to the same screening I did? There was this one guy who wouldn’t shut up for over five minutes. Eventually, shouts from the crowd that he should leave made their way through his adamantine skull. Or maybe that of his caretaker.
What a relief that this happened during a movie that turned out to be good.
Does the shooter need any help with money for his legal defense?
Back at the dawn of cinema, everyone talked in the movie theater. Mainly, this was because Read the rest of this entry »
Editor’s note: If you haven’t read about Kari before, some of her further adventures are being discussed 
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