Movies on Demand... At the Cinema

by Jordan Yerman | March 5, 2007 at 10:58 am

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The concept discussed in the article below is fairly similar to seat-back entertainment systems on airplanes, where the user can choose from a series of preloaded digital films. So far, though, traditional cinemas have not taken advantage of the flexibility of digital files. When a film can easily be run for a day without the hight costs of 35mm prints and the shipping of those prints, mini-festivals and microdistribution could become new facets of the entertainment industry.

This is great news for indie filmmakers, whose projects may not enjoy the marketability that would drive a national or global distribution, but which may entice individual cinema owners to give them a go for a special engagement. Sometimes those first audiences are better than the cleverest marketing team in terms of getting the word out.

"Our goal really is to have the easiest, fastest, most reliable, most cost-effective content delivery technique possible to the theaters we represent," said Travis Reid, Chief Executive of Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, which is working with Warner Bros. and Universal.

The process, still in the early stages of development, would use satellite and broadband delivery systems to beam digital films directly to theaters, rather than have them copied onto hard drives and delivered by hand, as for the most part they are now, said Darcy Antonellis, Warner Bros.' executive vice president for distribution and technology.

That kind of rapid delivery, Reid said, would allow theater operators the flexibility to economically market niche films that could be shown for just a day or two to a targeted audience. It would also allow operators to quickly find more screens for surprise hits.

"We believe that if we can make that a very efficient process, very fast, they'll be able to respond to audience demands more," he said.

Beaming an encrypted version of a digital film directly to the theater should also cut down on film piracy and bootlegging, Antonellis said, by eliminating the number of opportunities for people to get their hands on the movie as it is transit.