February 09, 2005
'National Lampoon's Blackball' Trims Theatrical to DVD Window to Four Days
National Lampoon will release their new Vince Vaughn comedy pic 'Blackball' on DVD just four days after its theatrical premiere, according to Reuters.
With a majority of a film's revenue now coming from the DVD release, it only makes sense for film marketers to capitalize on the theatrical marketing push. While this is the shortest window so far, several holiday-themed pics rushed to market over the holiday season:
In October, 2004, DreamWorks sent out "Surviving Christmas" to major hype. When it flopped at box offices the major studio rushed the videos and DVDs into stores by December.
Atlanta's The Convex Group put a Christmas movie, "Noel" in theaters last November and on the same day issued a disposable DVD -- different from National Lampoon's long-lasting DVD -- to retailers such as Amazon.com.
Dawn Whaley, executive vice president of The Convex Group, said she believed the publicity around the theatrical release did help spur sales of the DVD.
As many DVD marketers know, generating enthusiasm for a title the second time around can be expensive and time consuming. This is especially true for B-titles and poor theatrical performers. It makes sense from a ROI standpoint to more closely integrate the marketing for select low-to-mid level performers.
Film Article | Reuters.com
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It was obviously that it would come to this sooner or later. The only way IMO to change this behavior now would be to drop the theatre-admissions down at least 50 %, but I´m sure this won´t happen. :)
BTW In 1982 Sam Raimi´s "The Evil Dead" was released here in germany in the theatres AND on Video at the SAME day, but the reasons where different. Then it was because anyone involved in the release of the then to become cult-classic was almost sure it would give some problems with our BPS (sort of a german MPAA). Off course they where right and the movie was banned soon after - but that´s a totally different story. :)
This isn't quite what it seems -- it's just a re-branded ("Now with added National Lampoon!") release of a movie that came and went in the UK a while back; the DVD has been out for quite some time already:
http://www.dvd.co.uk/product.asp?id=D095859