Tag Archives: Blockbuster

Movie Studios vs RedBox

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[adrotate banner=”1″]Video stores, unions, and movie studios are aiming to shoot down RedBox and similar video rental kiosks that let you rent films for a dollar. Movie studios are upset they don’t get more money, while video stores are upset about losing business and unions are claiming the movie studios will lose money and thus cut jobs. It’s war!

Yahoo sez:

Video Buyers Group, a trade organization for some 1,700 independent brick-and-mortar video stores, is prepping an ad campaign that’ll paint Redbox as a threat to the film industry as we know it. Why? Because its $1-a-night rental rate is “generating less revenue” for Hollywood studios than the $3-$5/night prices charged by the average video store, according to Video Business.

RedBox is already suing back, having hit major studios with lawsuits because they don’t want RedBox to rent their films out when they first arrive on DVD, forcing them to wait.

Now, all of this is just movie studios wanting to keep the cash cow they have on DVD sales, even if DVD sales are slowly slipping. I love movies, but I have cut back my DVD purchases to almost nil lately. Even when the economy picks back up I doubt I will be rushing out ot buy DVDs, not because I don’t love films, but because I cannot justify the costs. As for the kiosks vs Blockbuster or similar stores, with the kiosks I don’t have to put up with surly employees. That alone is enough for me to switch to a box, in addition to the price. Sorry, movie studios, maybe you should make better films instead of relying on DVD sales to save your unoriginal butts. With the economy in the toilet right now, I can’t imagine many consumers caring that you think they paid too little for the right to see some $200 million unnecessary remake.

We are big fans of unions here at TarsTarkas.NET, but we are not fans of unions letting themselves be used by studios. Shame on this union.
Redbox

Blockbuster might go bankrupt!

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[adrotate banner=”1″]Oh, no! Blockbuster video might declare bankruptcy! Where will I rent my NC-17 movies edited down to R, or rent a terrible collection of foreign films, or hardly any films made after the 1980s? Netflix style rentals are eventually the wave of the future (or the rentals from $1 vending machines like I do) and Blockbuster telegraphed this with their changing of their own Netflix copycat service (making the wait between movies longer)

Actually, this might be a problem. If Blockbuster starts slowing down, then all the direct to DVD movies that make most of their profit off of Blockbuster and Hollywood Video presales will be in big trouble! The small budget video market has changed a lot in the past decade, and with this it may morph into something unrecognizable! We might see less low budget films on rental shelves, limiting potential viewership of those titles. This will probably cause an increase in oversea sales (but at cheaper prices due to desperation) and also more low budget fare on streaming sites, or even “buy this DVD off a website (or a download) for a small fee” type deals. As much as I hate Blockbuster, they do allow for a fair bit of terrible films to make enough money to keep making more terrible films. And that loss will be a loss heartfelt here at TarsTarkas.NET and all cult movie sites. Imagine if The Asylum was unable to make enough money off of The Terminators or Transmorphers 2 and had to stop doing mockbusters? The world would be devastated! Maybe Blockbuster can do something to weather this storm and survive, but their current way of making money is limited. I don’t think streaming will become mainstream for a long time, so I really don’t know what would happen if Blockbuster were to go under.