‘Bubble’ ready to burst
LOS ANGELES — If you live in New Jersey, Virginia or Nevada and want to see the new Steven Soderbergh film “Bubble” in a theater, pack your bags. It won’t be showing in those or more than a dozen other states.
The country’s largest theater chains are snubbing the film because they object to it being sold on DVD and shown on cable TV the same day it debuts in a handful of theaters owned by the same company that produced the movie.
“Bubble” isn’t the first film to be released this way. But the combination of a high-profile director and the backing of maverick billionaires Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban have studios and theater owners paying close attention this time.
“It’s the biggest threat to the viability of the cinema industry today,” John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, said of the so-called “day and date” release strategy.
The move comes as new technology is giving consumers faster access to music, movies, TV shows and other content via multiple devices, including laptop computers, portable video screens, even cell phones. Theater owners have faced challenges from technology before, most notably television and the VCR. But this is the first time major studios have contemplated releasing films in competing formats at the same time.
The low-budget “Bubble,” a murder mystery set in a doll factory, opens Jan. 27 and is the first of six films to be produced under a partnership between Soderbergh and 2929 Entertainment. Founded by Wagner and Cuban, the company owns Magnolia Pictures, which will distribute “Bubble” in partnership with Landmark Theaters and HDNet Movies, the cable TV channel that will air it.
All six films produced by the partnership will be released simultaneously on DVD, television and in theaters. “Bubble” will appear on DVD a few days after its theater and cable release.
Currently, studios carefully control the release of major motion pictures to maximize profits. Films are first released in theaters, then on pay per view, home video, pay cable networks such as HBO, and finally on broadcast TV.
But the time between those windows has been shrinking. In 1994, the average time between a movie’s opening in theaters and its debut on home video was about six months. In 2004, that span fell to four months, with some studios releasing films on DVD even sooner.
A typical film now earns about half of its revenue from home video and only about 25 percent from theaters. The remainder comes from selling the film to cable and broadcast TV and other sources.