In Ned Randolph's story on Fanista, the new online DVD retailer from the folks at Amway, founder Dan Adler discusses the niche the start-up is hoping to fill.
"What we grew up on doesn't exist anymore," he says. "You used to be able to walk into a record store and find someone behind the counter who knew what they were talking about," he said.
I'm sure lots of independent retailers--and even some larger ones--out there will take issue with that.
All across the U.S., there are video stores that you can walk into and find someone who knows movies and is eager to talk about them--to help you find something you'll like. Or, at least, something they like.
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Note to the Writers Guild: you wrote off DVD too soon.

Hollywood's writers continue to negotiate with the motion picture and TV producers weeks after going on strike. Before the strike even started, however, the writers caved on the issue of going after larger DVD residuals, in the face of dauting studio opposition. Most of the negotiating now centers around "new media" issues such as who gets paid what for both original and repurposed content distributed over the Internet.

The studios say they don't make any money in new media, but the writers believe otherwise, having been convinced so by studio happy talk about downloads and the like pumped out at investor and new media conferences across the universe.
 
Whether the studios make money in Internet distribution or not is not really the point-- since any money the...Read More

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I’m feeling pretty independent lately.

It happens every year or so, when I see a string of independent films that just make me want more.

Last weekend, staying up alone late and hoping to unwind after a little family overload, I popped the year-old Zach Braff starrer The Last Kiss into the DVD player.

My colleague Laurence Lerman often comments about my down-time choices, “Oh, you’re the one who saw it.” But I’ve always been a sucker for a romantic comedy and The Last Kiss (distr...Read More

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Am I the only one getting a tad bit of deja vu from Jim Keyes turnaround strategy for Blockbuster?

A "merchant culture" focusing on DVD sales, snacks, music and posters? 80% of the chain's revenue on Shrek the Third will come from sell-through? Sounds awfully reminiscent of that Big Blue CEO of a decade ago, Bill Fields.

And we all know how that ended.

To be fair, home entertainment has changed dramatically in the past decade. Sell-through was just a fledgling business in the Fields era, perhaps the reason the sales focus of that era seemed so, well, unfocused. 

Blockbuster for almost its entire corporate life has been moving strategically toward serving up multiple forms of entertainment, in any way consumers want it. (Remember Blockbuster Pavilion? ...;Read More

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Update on my last post about the other Blu-ray studios debating Paramount's claims that Transformers set a high-def record when it was released on the 16th. 

The Blu-ray spin masters also took told their story to Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily, which published their claims and Paramount's rebuttal in detail, including unnamed Blu-ray execs calling Paramount's press release a "big ass, fat, stupid lie." Then the Blu-ray camp made much of  Finke's blog at its Blu-ray Festival junket in Hollywood this week.
 
As we've said before, Blu-ray definitely holds the upper hand in the spin war, regardless of any ups and downs in the format war itself. 

Be nice if ...Read More

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Prediction: Within two weeks  the week, we’ll see a press release trumpeting record-breaking Blu-ray Disc sales of Sony’s Spider-Man 3.

The fourth quarter is primed for one boast after another, with a record four films that made more than $300 million at the box office—Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third and Transformers—and 15 more titles over $100 million due at stores in the coming weeks.

The studios are all hoping against hope that the combined firepower ...Read More

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There is always more complexity and nuance to industry market data than we have the time or space to get into in our quarterly reports . The top line is that year-to-date, the industry is still down from last year, but rental and sales have narrowed the gap since earlier in the year. That’s a story the studios are anxious to get out, along with their optimism that all the box-office hits due in the fourth quarter will be enough to pull 2007 even with, or ahead of 2006.

There was a fair amount made earlier this year of the fall-off in new releases, and while the theatrical new release business is weaker than last ...Read More

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 Susanne Ault reports  that key consumer electronics retailers are looking to increase/maintain their profit margins in the face of falling HDTV prices by selling TV buyers more accessories, including high-def DVD players. Could be beneficial all around, since software sales will grow with hardware penetration.

Challenges to that goal, however, include forecasted weak consumer spending this holiday season (Wal-Mart just last week slashed prices on more than 15,000 items in hopes of getting the Christmas party started) and the dang format war, which is causing consumers to delay ne...Read More

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With consumer purchases...Read More

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The lead story in The Wall Street Journal this  morning has a cataclysmic premise, at least in the retail world. I quote, "The Wal-Mart Era, the retailer's time of overwhelming business and social influence in America, is drawing to a close."
In it, reporter Gary McWilliams credits Wal-Mart with no less than boosting America's overall productivity, lowering the inflation rate, strengthening the buying power of millions of people, accelerating the drive to manufacture products (more cheaply) in Asia, driving countless mom-and-pops out of business and speeding the decline of Main Street. But, says McWilliams, the retailer's heyday is over and rival retailers are gaining by providing the qualities Americans find lacking at Wal-Mart: greater convenience, more selection, higher quality and better service.
As evidence of Wal-Mart's waning clout with supp...Read More

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Somebody’s gonna lose in the fourth quarter.

Nobody wants to say it, but there it is.

Despite relentless optimism by the studios, which are slamming everything they can into stores between Sept. 25 and Dec. 31, some titles are going to underperform.

That’s not to completely negate the spin coming out of pretty much all the studios right now that a rising tide lifts all boats. They are counting on a packed release slate that includes 15 titles that made more than $100 million in theaters to basically expand consumer purchasing just because there’s so much good stuff available. Even titles that in past years might have been held until January...Read More

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