Linkapalooza - April 14, 2008

Blockbuster bids for Circuit City - link to Variety.com. This news was all over the place this morning, but from our perspective, what's really interesting is what you can ensinuate from this... and that is that Blockbuster believes that the future of entertainment is in how content is delivered, not in the content itself. Even an arm chair film fan could tell you that the DVD/video rental business has been sucking hind tit lately and Blockbuster's current CEO, who came from 7-11, believes that the key to Blockbuster surviving is to turn them into more of a retail outlet. That would mean that Blockbuster would offer the whole movie experience, which would include things like DVD players, TV's, whatever... thus trying to take over Circuit City. My take on this is that they simply don't believe that DVD's will be around much longer AND Blu-Ray will not be 'the next thing', like a lot of people think. They must think it's all going digital - downloading and streaming is where it's going to be at and if that's the case, sell (or rent) the vessel and make money on the players. Further, if Blockbuster figures out a business model that allows them to make money through renting or distributing content digitally, the idea of shelf space will be gone. The fundemental result? Infinite shelf space and low, low costs on stocking as many films as they want. Long and short, as an indie filmmaker, there will be absolutely no reason why your movie won't be available in every Blockbuster, everywhere... and that means revenue for you... not to mention a worldwide audience.

johnaugust.com - link to site. I came across this fantastic blog, written by award winning screenwriter John August, whose credits include "Go", "Big Fish", "Titan A.E.", "Charlie's Angels", "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Corpse Bride" and "The Nines". Self-titled as a ton of useful information about screenwriting, he basically answers questions from aspiring and up-and-coming screenwriters. If screenwriting's your deal ... or your weakness, it's definitely worth reading.

"Prom Night" takes the weekend in a big, fat, smelly way and "The Ruins" just smells... link to boxofficemojo.com. Okay, so "The Ruins", which is not a remake and is based on a novel of the same name, is actually a decent film that a lot of horror fans are giving good reviews to. Now, "Prom Night", which is a PG-13 remake, is getting shat on by all the horror fans. Result? "Prom Night" does over $20Million on its opening weekend, "The Ruins" has done just over $13Million in 2 weeks. So, what's going on here? A couple things... one, horror fans aren't going to the theaters anymore, they're getting their fix from DVD's. Two, the people who are going to see "Prom Night" aren't really horror fans. So, if you're the type of person that bitches and complains about how they keep remaking movies and bringing them out as PG-13 junk, don't blame the studios. They're just doing what the numbers tell them to.

Now, juxtapose what's going on in that last paragraph with what I'm going to say about "Inside", in this paragraph - link to trailers, summary on Shocktillyoudrop. "Inside" is the english bastardized title to the French film, "A L'interieue", which is a brutal horror film that's a complete attack on the senses that will leave you emotionally drained and just f'ed up. Reviews include phrases like: "the most stomach-churning movie I've ever seen", "the most powerful and disturbing films to come along in a long, long time", a "mutilated finger pressed firmly to the pulse of horror". Let's just say that "Inside" isn't getting a theatrical release over here, but it'll make money on it's DVD release. So, my questions is, why aren't we making movies like this over here? They're what horror audiences want, they're not that hard to make and, when done on a low-budget, they can turn a profit fairly easily... what am I missing?