D2V

A recent article today on artsjournal touched upon the realm of Direct to Video releases, movies that bypass the theaters completely and hit the home video market first and last.  Going D2V is usually seen as a sign that the movie is a failure and that the studios did not want to waste any more money distributing it.  Disney is a culprit of this many times, creating sequels to the classics in their vaults and sending them directly to video to make a quick buck (Aladdin II and III, Lady and the Tramp II, Little Mermaid II & The Prequel, Cinderella II, and on and on).

Recently, though, some filmmakers have experiment with the home video format.  Steven Soderbergh released his independent project Bubble (2005) in the theaters and simultaneously on DVD.  The theaters that exhibited the movie had the DVD on sale in the lobby, so if a patron really liked the movie, they could own it right then and there.

Really, though, I don't think much of Soderbergh's idea.  If people can enjoy the movie in their home theater systems immediately, then they will just buy the DVD for $30 and skip paying the $10 a head movie price.  And as for all the D2V movies out there, well it's a shame that they exist, but there isn't much that you can do about them.  Horror movies are another culprit of the D2V syndrome.  How do we solve this?  Stop making bad movies, but that is too simple (and too complicated) a solution.