HOORAY! I've been dying to see this. Great news!

sarahb | June 09, 02:13 CET

Spectacular news. It's an awesome movie that deserves to be seen.

NimNams | June 09, 02:36 CET

On demand prior to theatrical release? Has this been done before?

janef | June 09, 02:50 CET

Too bad my horror and gore threshold is incredibly low. Alan's great no matter what he does. I'll be sad to miss him. Very nice that they credit him with Serenity above all of his other acting jobs. :)

(And under neat-o-keen but pointless trivia, did you know that if I start to type "A-l-a" at the imdb, his name pops up second on the list right after Alan Rickman?)

BreathesStory | June 09, 03:05 CET

This is more comedy than horror and well worth a watch. Great news that it's getting released.

hacksaway | June 09, 03:33 CET

Hopefully I will get a screener for this film to review. Looks awesome.

C.S.Strowbridge | June 09, 07:54 CET

On demand prior to theatrical release? Has this been done before?

Yeah, it's actually not that uncommon these days. Not sure about a month in advance though, most of the ones I remember are a few days to a week ahead.

Fingers crossed for a UK release, this sounds like my cuppa camomile.

Saje | June 09, 10:39 CET

Sometimes they will release a film in theatres and on Video on Demand on the same day as well. I don't like it, as I think it hurts a film's box office numbers. That said, perhaps getting a VoD window generates more revenue than the film's potential limited release run.

C.S.Strowbridge | June 09, 13:46 CET

I actually like it for broadly the same reason - it indicates that Hollywood may (just may) be moving away from its obsession with the opening weekend as a judgement of the worth (financial or otherwise) of a film. Hundreds of people spend months/years of their lives and tens/hundreds of millions of other people's dollars making a movie the success of which is then largely judged on its first three days business. Crahooozy.

Saje | June 09, 15:15 CET

VOD consumption of an unreleased film is probably so small that it works more as word of mouth promotion or private screenings than as a true revenue generator.

Not really all that crazy, Saje, when decades and decades of data from thousands of movies tells you that all future revenue streams of the movie are directly predictable off that first weekend box office. We may not like it but that doesn't make it less true.

[ edited by IrrationaliTV on 2011-06-09 17:35 ]

IrrationaliTV | June 09, 17:33 CET

This was released on DVD in Europe a few months ago, so has been on BitTorrent for a while now.

gossi | June 09, 17:35 CET

Do you mean Europe as in "the continent" gossi (i.e. the way we talk about Europe sometimes as if dear old Blighty isn't actually in it) ? Cos neither play.com nor Amazon.co.uk seem to have it (unless i'm brain-farting).

Not really all that crazy, Saje, when decades and decades of data from thousands of movies tells you that all future revenue streams of the movie are directly predictable off that first weekend box office. We may not like it but that doesn't make it less true.

Really really though IrrationaliTV ? Man i'd love to see that data. Cos when I was a kid most films seemed to stay on for weeks/months after release whereas now it seems like if they don't do well initially the number of screens drops pretty sharply pretty quickly which seems kind of short sighted and self-fulfilling. Even if true though, it's surely not the be all end all 100% accurate predictor that some execs as well as the entertainment media seem to treat it as (or rather if it is it's partly because they do).

(and word of mouth is exactly what I expected VOD to be useful for - it's a bit like having those longer releases back again, gives smaller films a chance to pick up momentum)

Saje | June 09, 20:08 CET

There is no such thing as an 100% accurate prediction model. In any business. Ever. There will be outliers.

The movie business is a portfolio one. Some movies do well, others fail, others exceed expectations, other fall below. Overall in the aggregate first weekend box office will (really) predict all future revenue streams. Is it a self fulfilling prediction? Highly doubtful since the people doing the predicting are not the egos involved with making and marketing the movie most of the time.

The screen drop is decided by the theaters, not the movie studios. And movies used to stay in theaters longer because there simply weren't as many movies made. Simple concept. Really.

IrrationaliTV | June 09, 20:26 CET

Good stuff. Expectations fulfilled, cheers for that.

Saje | June 09, 22:01 CET