Sony CEO says internet piracy killing movie biz

[deadrats]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6891166.ece

Online theft siphons billions of dollars out of the marketplace. That means less money to make movies. Projects get scaled back and others dropped. Some potential blockbusters won’t get made. Some new writers, actors and film-makers won’t get discovered. Last year the leading Hollywood studios made 162 films — more than 40 fewer than in 2006, and the lowest number in a decade.

now i realize that i don't have a fancy MBA from a top notch school like Harvard or Yale but i think huge reason billions of dollars are being "siphoned" probably has more to do with the following reasons instead of online piracy:

1) exorbitant compensation for leading actors/actresses, when just the lead actor gets 10-20 million dollars, then you have a serious payroll issue.

2) exorbitant compensation for everyone behind the scenes, my understanding is that entry level grips make $35+ per hour, top grips make $500 a day, carpenters and other crew make $50+ per hour.

3) ridiculous compensation for the directors and producers, who command salaries that can dwarf a leading man/woman.

4) insane salaries for the executives that sit on their asses all day long and even crazier advertising expenses.

5) the fact that all the above adds up to a product that you need to charge an arm and a leg to sell, specifically to movie theaters who in turn need to charge high ticket prices in addition to high concession stand prices.

6) and lastly, in many case they produce a product that the average joe isn't willing to purchase, how many times can you see the same adam sandler comedy? i get it, he's jewish, angry, rich beyond belief but likes to play the part of a common man down on his luck, how many different ways do you want to present that premise to me?

perhaps the best proof that Michael's arguments are flat out wrong is the fact that porn movies are the most widely pirated online content, off the top of my head i can think of a dozen torrent sites dedicated just to porn and they have literally hundreds of terabytes of content indexed yet the porn industry is a multi-billion dollar a year business with no signs of it's growth slowing down.

if online piracy of content really did have the detrimental impact on business that Lynton and his kind claim then the porn industry would have closed up shop years ago.

clearly Mike doesn't have a clue...

[guns1inger]

Sony CEO says internet piracy killing movie biz

And this is from the people who made Spiderman 3 . . . . . .

[lordsmurf]

Their own accounting/payroll is what kills them. They have left the world of financial reality.

I can't afford $25 DVDs
or $10 movie tickets with $9 for small drink and popcorn.

The few times a year I go to the movie theatre, it's a $6 matinee, when popcorn and Coke is $1 each.

My DVDs all come from the bargain bin for under $5 at Big Lots or Walmart. These are usually older flicks, with re-watching value.

Anything new I just rent and watch for $1 from RedBox. Some of them are so bad I eject before finishing and return -- and there's no point in copying a DVD you already saw or don't like. So the idea that renting is a gateway to piracy is retarded.

The only $20+ discs I get are box sets, usually with sales or coupons, often from Amazon, DeepDiscount or Tower, with free shipping. Even then, can't afford to do that too often.

Food, gas, electric -- that's where almost all of my money goes each month. I have to eat.

I don't have any sympathy for a CEO.

[impmon2]

I agree with lordsmurf. Add to that I will NOT pay for movie that stinks badly. There have been many stinkers (including a few from Sony) that I would rather spend time having 4 root canals without pain relief than to spend $10 to watch.

If the movie fares poorly in box office, fire the script writer and director for not making it a must-watch movie. Not the pirates. I doubt pirate takes that big a chunk. I read somewhere it is at most 5% of people who saw the movie did it illegally via pirated source while rest paid for the movie tickets.

I'd also like to add the concession food price is stupidly high. People are smuggling in outside food and drink because it's too expensive inside. And if they keep raising the food and drink to make up for lack of sale, more will smuggle in food and drink. I liked it (and actually bought multiples) when you could still get a candy box for a dollar, a large bucket (2 quart sized) for $3 and a large pop (32 oz I think) for a dollar. But that was like 20 years ago.

PS what movie theater has $9 for drink and pop corn? My local theater is hitting close to $9 just for the pop corn.

[lordsmurf]

If I go to a matinee and coke/popcorn isn't on sale, then I put a bottle or water in my back pocket, and maybe put a bag of M&M's in my front pocket. Usually just water, not a big fan of sweet junk food/drink.

I like those new smoking commercials. You don't have to smoke when you drive.
You don't have to eat/drink when you watch a movie.

[Lucifers_Ghost]

I like those new smoking commercials. You don't have to smoke when you drive. You don't have to eat/drink when you watch a movie.

I thinks its just part of the "movie culture." People are so used to seeing people eat popcorn at the movies, that now, they feel like they are missing something by not eating. Its a little ridiculous but I think thats whats going on.

[gadgetguy]

Personally, I always get the biggest popcorn and the biggest soft drink I can, every time I go. It costs nearly as much as the tickets, but I want the theater to stay in business and if it had to rely on profits from ticket sales, it couldn't. It might be different if the studios were producing movies that were really worth paying to see, but that's hardly the theater's fault. But if the theater goes out of business, I won't be able to see even the occasional good movie.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Dudes... I think Angelina Jolie is hot, but I don't think she should pocket $20M for a movie.

If the movie script is GOOD, then it really doesn't matter who is in it.

A good story will always be a good story.

[deadrats]

Dudes... I think Angelina Jolie is hot, but I don't think she should pocket $20M for a movie.

If the movie script is GOOD, then it really doesn't matter who is in it.

A good story will always be a good story.

it's funny you should mention that, i am currently in the middle of writing a book on economics and in my discussion of capitalism as it exists in america i argue that no one should be allowed to earn past a certain amount, i set the limit at a total net worth of 10 million and i go on to show how the current system results in a distribution of wealth where, according to the federal reserve, in 1990, the richest 1% of the population in america owned 40% of the wealth and 20% owned 80% of the wealth.

even more sickening are these facts according to the department of labor:

-At any one time, between 13% and 17% of the population is below the U.S. Government established “poverty threshold”.

-Within any 10 year time span, roughly 40% of the population will fall below the poverty line.

-58.5% will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between the ages of 25 and 75.

"movie stars" earning 20 million per movie is just one aspect of a broken system, i would much rather see the studio go out and hire 20 good looking chicks that are of average income and give them 1 million dollars each to be in a movie, or does anyone actually think that what jolie, tom cruise, or any of them do is so special that no one else on the face of the earth can possibly do it?

[deadrats]

I'd also like to add the concession food price is stupidly high.

i have actually talked about this before, the theaters don't actually make any money on the movies, i had a good friend of mine that used to manage a couple of Lowe's theaters who explained to me how it works: basically each theater has to pay a per screen fee for every movie it shows, depending on how "in-demand" a movie is, the fee can be as high as 110% of the per seat admission price, for instance when 8 mile came out, that opening weekend the fee was 110% of the 10 bucks per seat the theater charged for admission. as the movie stay in the theater the fee goes down, to a floor of about 85% of the ticket cost. this holds true if the movie is showing on 1 screen or a dozen.

so when a movie like spiderman comes out and you see the theater packed that weekend, they are not making a dime on the movie showing, all the income comes from concession stand sales.

it's a sad state of affairs, as ridiculous as it sounds, if the theater wants to pay the salaries of it's employees, electricity, rent on the property (the property is always leased), etc, they need to charge through the nose for concession stand food and they need to sell a lot of it.

i actually know of 3 different Lowe's theaters that ended up closing down and 1 independent theater that closed down because the studios wouldn't allow them to show first run blockbuster movies because they din;t have enough screens, they could get the latest releases thus they were always showing older movies that had been out for a while, which meant the couldn't charge enough at the door and they couldn't get the concession stand sales that were needed.

Lowe's kept them open for a while, propping up, despite the fact that they were hemorrhaging cash and eventually in a truly ironic twist, the smallest of them ended up being torn down and being made into a bank.

[lordsmurf]

I'm actually fine with not having any more theatres. If that's what it takes to bomb the movie industry, fine. People at home won't pay $10 to watch it on PPV. Realism will have to eventually set in.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

I really think that the root of the problem is overpaying.

Overpaying the actors.

Overpaying the CEOs

Overpaying everybody connected to the movie itself.

The Matrix would have been the SAME success even if a totally unknown BUT WELL CAST actor was to play NEO instead of Keanu Reeves.

I never met somebody that said (Still talking about the matrix) "Let's go see the latest KEANU REEVES MOVIE". They were all hyper-stoked about the trailer, because it seemed like a good story at the time.

I remember when the studios went heart broken because Wil Smith didn't want to star in it and thought no one would fit the role of NEO.

Sh1t, I could have played NEO very well and I would have been more than glad to do it for a "modest introductory fee to showbusiness" of 1M

If the story sucks, you can put as many stars in it as you want... it will still be a stinker.

Just check Paranormal Activity. No stars, No Budget... but raking in the cash.

Need to say more?

[zzyzzx]

Bah humbug, just wait for the movie to show up on TV. IMO, they have priced themselves out of the market.

[yoda313]

On a good year I'll see 4 movies at most probably. Usually action blockbusters. I'll occasinally see a comedy though almost never in the theaters. The last comedy I saw in the theater was Rush Hour 3 but that was more of an action movie than a regular comedy.

I'll also buy 3 or 4 new movies a year depending on the year. These days I'm buying tv shows more on disc than movies. THough I did buy the first 6 star trek movies on Bluray this year.

If Bluray would drop to at least 20.00 or lower I'd buy on bluray more often. I did buy Transformers 2 on bluray but thats about it for the year.

I only buy the stuff I want. I don't care about movie critics usually. The scifi/action movies I like are usually trashed by movie critics. So most of the time I don't pay attention to them and go see what I want to see.

Now that I have high speed cable internet and downloading movies is actually realistic instead of the old sub .5mb dsl I had I like using amazon and the playstation network on my ps3.

My only beef with the ps3 is that not all movies are in 5.1. Apparently amazon has a lot in surround sound but you have to download it completely to get it, streaming is stereo. The pricing is good.

[videobread]

Maybe the movie business is just dying of old age. I don't watch many new movies anymore. I don't buy movies, I don't go to the movies and I don't collect movies. I had a VHS collection that I gave away years ago and decided to not go there again. Today I watch old movies mostly from Netflix. They have everything and for about a buck. I like old cowboy movies (Randolph Scott), Hammer horror and old WWII movies. The 50's movies were all good.

Maybe all the good movies have already been made. There sure are not that many good new ones anymore. Transformers is a technological masterpiece, but no story line and no acting! I'd rather watch a mindless old 50's cowboy movie.

[T-Fish]

wasnt last year another record profit year after 06 ?
with how many billions of $ in pure profit ?

pfffff