U.S. Losing $20.5 Billion to Movie Pirates

[normcar]

I didn't mention the fact that the model is administered by the US government to suggest that it is perfectly accurate, I did so to point out that it is the same model and criteria that all statistical studies of this type must use.

So that means studies the US spends millions on, and gives millions to researchers for studies, are equally as accurate? Perhaps we should stop doing studies, and recoup some of that 20.5 billion.

[adam]

I don't think you can ever say that any two studies are equally accurate. But there is a certain thing to be said for making sure that economic statisticians use the same standards, and yes the US government has an interest in that. Relatively speaking, very few surveys are funded by the US Govt. They are funded by private entities and they all have an agenda. I think its clear that the agenda for this survey is to convice politicians, and the public, that a stronger foreign presence in the area of intellectual property protection will be in the best interest of the entire nation as opposed to just the motion picture industry. It should be obvious that the ultimate goal of this survey is to light a fire under some asses so that steps can be taken to recoup that $20.5 billion, or however much the US is actually losing due to piracy. They aren't doing the survey just to cry boo hoo.

I've already stated my distrust for survey's of this type. They are buying statistical evidence to support the creation of new laws. You can look at the various Committe calendars and see all of the dates during which this survey is going to be presented and discussed before Congress. And like I said, the other side is busy getting their statistical suvey's ready as well.

[FulciLives]

I actually enjoyed and dare I say even liked BloodRayne despite it being "cheesy" at times I think it did a great job overall of being a kewl movie. I just really enjoyed it.

Although I will say it was the first Uwe Boll film I've seen that I liked. I mean HOUSE OF THE DEAD and ALONE IN THE DARK both sucked donkey balls.

And yes even I questioned my sanity when I realized at the ending credits that I had liked BloodRayne but my girlfriend felt the same way about it and also hates his other movies so ...

Go figure.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[chupa]

If less money is being made in movies we could blame piracy or ....

1. the fact that cable and dish have become more popular over the years; they used to be rare in people's homes.

2. video games started targeting adults about 5 years ago.

3. the internet started to become popular about 6 years ago and dominates many peoples lives, and that include online gaming

4. maybe people just decided to get a life instead of watching tv all day.

[BJ_M]

4. maybe people just decided to get a life instead of watching tv all day.

i doubt it

[Tom Saurus]

I think the movie studios must make money from selling their products to the various Movie Networks. Maybe there are some people who just don't go to the movie theatres, and wait to see what is coming on the Movie Channels. Some movies are priced too high, for alot of us to afford. Their are alot of great TV Shows, TV Movies and Hollywood Blockbusters that haven't even been released on vhs not to mention DVD. I remember a movie I really enjoyed watching called "The Journey Of Dr. Meg Laurel" which starred Lindsay Wagner and Jane Wyman. That movie is laying around in some vault somewhere, and it is a shame, it was never put on DVD.

I just bet if some Network would show the Mini Series "Roots" again, that millions of people would want to buy a DVD Set; I know I would. They should really have one night a week on TV where they show some of the older shows which were good, they would probably learn there is a market out there for stuff, they have forgotten about. For example the western "Johnny Ringo" I saw it on the Lonestar Channel. It may have only had thirty episodes or so, but my family really enjoyed watching them. It is not available on DVD, or even vhs. It is a shame, if more people saw that western, they could create a market for that show, and it could be restored and worked on to be put on DVD.

I want to buy the DVD's that were recently released of the original Star Wars Trilogy. For me to buy them here in Canada, I was qouted a price around 45 bucks for each of the three movies. Then there is this "Only For A Limited Time" stuff that Disney and now George Lucas is pulling. I can maybe buy a movie at 45 bucks once every 2 months, the others may be off the market by then.

When movies are priced at affordable prices, it makes sense to buy them. Most people don't want to download a crappy version of the Internet or bother trying to copy a DVD. Pirating would probably dry up considerably if the DVD's were reasonably priced.

My sister buys the Disney DVD's and for the most part she gets the classics ones. Though I have always hated how they say "Get it now, before we put it back in the vault". It puts pressure on to buy it on their timetable not the consumers. I think they are worth the money that we pay for them, because they are timeless, and really good quality.

As for building a market for a DVD set, I often wonder why doesn't HBO make a deal with Steven King and do a major miniseries of "The Stand". If you had the right director, and it was done right, I could see that bringing millions of viewers, and generating alot of DVD sales. I have the ABC Mini Series on DVD, and really enjoyed it. I thought it was really reasonably priced, about 10 bucks or so. I think there is alot of fans of "The Stand" that would like to see it play out on HBO, which wouldn't have the restrictions that a national Network would have. They could add in more details, and graphic content and spread it out more time wise. The ABC Miniseries was 4 parts, maybe HBO could a 6 or 8 part , 12 hour version. I live in Canada and don't get HBO, but to my way of thinking HBO would be ideally the one for such a project, and they sell stuff to the Canadian Movie Networks quite often.

In closing I think those figures are propoganda to get some kind of sympathy for problems the MPAA could fix, with a new pricing scheme, and revamping the Industry.

[jagabo]

I often wonder why doesn't HBO make a deal with Steven King and do a major miniseries of "The Stand".

It's already been done:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108941/

[Conquest10]

Anyone notice 7 of the 10 highest grossing films of all time have been released in the past five years? Number 3 was released this year.

[FulciLives]

Anyone notice 7 of the 10 highest grossing films of all time have been released in the past five years? Number 3 was released this year.

The powers that be such as the MPAA would, I imagine, explain that away as "inflaction" since movie ticket prices go up year after year.

They will argue that in "adjusted" dollars that none of the very current "highest grossing films" are all that high since GONE WITH THE WIND (in "adjusted" dollars) probably made more (at least GONE WITH THE WIND is the one example I always seem to read about when there is discussion of "highest grossing films of all times").

I'm not saying I agree per se with that thought process but I'm sure the MPAA likes the "ring" of it LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[normcar]

Anyone notice 7 of the 10 highest grossing films of all time have been released in the past five years? Number 3 was released this year.

Most of the biggest losing movies have been made in the last few years too. And some of the releases in the last few years of highest grossing movies are really created in the 1970s such as Star Wars sequels. Very few of the successful recient movies have come from original material. Many more of the recient movies that are successful are stupid crap for 14 yr old males. They even have the words stupid or some variation in the title.

[Nilfennasion]

1) FulciLives, you are a sick, sick man. Granted, I enjoyed watching BloodRayne too, but mostly as the kind of "try to figure out what is wrong with the director" type of entertainment that I've always enjoyed. Maybe the MPAA ought to consider that men like Boll are more of a threat to the film industry than piracy ever will be. I say we have an obligation to pirate, sneak into, or otherwise avoid paying for Boll's work, lest the film industry get the idea that people actually like this kind of crap (okay, I am being sarcastic).

2) Video games have almost always been targeted at adults, especially those closer to their eighteenth birthday than their fiftieth, for one simple reason: more disposable income. When the coin-ops were the primary source of game companies' income, coin-ops were as crude and violent as they possibly could be without getting the parents of some wandering twelve-year-old to complain. And even then, complaints were taken in stride mostly because the stereotype of all videogamers being fourteen years old was highly mythical.

3) Movie studios do in fact make a lot of their money selling their material to TV networks. They use their sales figures on the theatrical run in order to hard-bargain a price to the networks that they do not own, or to try and advertise the film on the ones that they do. Lucasfilm, for example, can literally set any price they want on any of the Star Wars films because the networks know a lot of people will watch. Maybe not as many as was the case in the glory days of the 1980s when stereo simulcasting was all the rage, but enough to give Lucasfilm a lot of bargaining muscle.

4) They did do a miniseries of The Stand, and it was awful. Apart from the usual cuts to the story that often diminish the creepy reality of the novel, one has to literally keep their eyes glued to the screen in order to make any sense of the story. Most of the dialogue is delivered in a high-school-play manner, and I was surprised that none of the cast started to milk giant cows. The scenes in which pivotal dialogue on which the entire plot hinges are especially terrible, because it becomes very clear in a hurry that the cast and crew are not taking said dialogue seriously at all. Everything from the so-called miracles to the manner in which the dialogue telegraphs them is perfunctory, too.

5) Three of the highest-losing films of all time were released in the last ten to fifteen years. These being Treasure Planet, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and The Adventures Of Pluto Nash. When each came out, either Eddie Murphy's inability to keep being funny or the studios' unrealistic expectations of how much money people were willing to spend on the film ensured dismal performances. So dismal, in fact, that each one set a new record for biggest write-off. The Adventures Of Pluto Nash cost around a hundred mil to make and brought in a measly four mil or so. And it is the least of the three in terms of absolute loss.

6) Maybe a remake of Morons From Outer Space is in order?

[lacywest]

This tells me that they really need to go out and find some new creative directors "nothing against Speilberg or the other and older film makers" to create new ideas for movies. I mean come on now they just wrapped up shooting "UnderDog" where I live. Are they gonna blame it on piracy if the film flops which it most likely will. My 4 year old calls the cartoon the stupid show.

I liked ... UnderDog ... when I was a kid.

Something I've noticed ... once in a great while I go to the Flea Market on Mondays here in town and there will be about 4 or more vender/booths selling movies that are currently playing at the theaters in our area. And when I open up the case and flip the DVD disk over and see how much was data was burned onto the disk ... it is only about one third of the disk ... geez ... the movie has got to be crap to look at. I cannot see spending $5 bucks to see the movie.

Now a few months later ... the movie comes out on DVD ... I mention that to someone ... quite a few someones and they say ... "oh we've already seen it".

Remember guys ... I work at a place where 26 men live at. These guys dont care about seeing a high quality movie mastered on a DVD ... they are pleased seeing a movie ... that displays people walking around in front of the screen and shitty sound.

So how many other people ... out there .... feel the same way ??? $20 Billion Dollars divided by ... $15 bucks =

[Nitemare]

Here in the US, Hollywood made an effort to make less violent films after the Columbine incident. I don't what it says about our society that the movies coming out were suddenly considered "lame" without this violence being included.

I distinctly remember when Sin City came out (on DVD) and I thought to myself "Wow! Now THAT was good, old-school violence!" Shame on me I suppose.

Another classic example... Batman Begins. (bear with me) After the pathetic and extremely "fashionable" Batman movies that preceeded it, I never bothered seeing this one in theaters. But, because I'm a Batman (comic book) fan from WAY back, someone bought me the DVD as a gift and I LOVED it. I was sorry that I hadn't seen it in theaters.

Can anyone blame Joe Moviegoer for this though? Too much that comes out is a bunch of bubble gum, pussy whipped, lame, and candy coated tripe. Frankly, I deserve better.

[FulciLives]

BATMAN BEGINS is simply the finest super hero movie of all time ... surpasing even the excellence of Richard Donner's SUPERMAN.

I actually consider Ang Lee's THE HULK to be the best super hero movie but THE HUNK is too tragic a character to really be called a "super hero". So love the film I do but I don't really consider it a "super hero" movie.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Nilfennasion]

Speaking as someone confronted with the real-life equivalent of its subject matter every day, no superhero film will ever equal X-Men or X-Men 2. Unlike Batman Begins or Superman Anything, a person with enough education and background in certain subjects can look at those two and seriously think "this could be right here, right now".

Unsurprisingly, I have bought a couple of different versions of both films (I ordered X-Men 2 from Amazon as soon as it was announced).

Conversely, I do not even consider Superman III or Supergirl worth the time or effort to bootleg.

[painkiller]

I have to admit - the only (few) times that I even consider going to a theater is because of anticipating movies such as X-Men 1&2, Batman Begins. They have a distinct feel of being possible in our reality.

If only Hollywood would wake up and realize that extraordinary moviemaking is what pulls us in maybe, just maybe, they could save their greedy little selves.

[TBoneit]

I keep hoping the Networks will get a clue here in the USA.

If they started ABC Classics, NBC Classic and CBS Classics using content from the when they started broadcasting to oh say 1986 and moving forwards so that next year they went up to 1987 and so on. I'd be watching.

I'd like to see the old Jackie Gleason variety hour shows or or the Music shows they used to broadcast. I'm going to give away my age when I say I remember seeing Dinah Shore singing the Chevy commercial. See the USA in your Chevrolet lyrics or OJ sailing through the air into a convertable advertising car rentals.


I'd even like to see a half hour show now and then with the old adverts and I more less hate modern adverts.

Call for Phillip Moris, or the Dancing Cigarettes or going further back the adverts from when they were live and worked right into the show as in burns and allen and so on.

Or bring back the shows that were not big hits at the time and had limited runs and probably never will hit Syndication.

Anyway, I'm thinking fat Chance they'd rather sell re-runs that get chopped up before being aired. Even though with the coming of HDTV I understand there is room for a SD broadcast along with a HD broadcast so they could do it. I doubt they will do it even though the cost would most likely be minimal for the early shows where the networks produced them rather than buying them from someone else.

Anyone notice how the Universal HD channel plugs their shows? No real surprise. not to mention that good HD quality could be done. I recently watched a 30's movie on MonstersHD that had great image and sound quality. Versus what TNTHD calls HD quality.

[FulciLives]

Anyone notice how the Universal HD channel plugs their shows? No real surprise. not to mention that good HD quality could be done. I recently watched a 30's movie on MonstersHD that had great image and sound quality. Versus what TNTHD calls HD quality.

Being a horror movie fan I've heard that MONSTERS HD kicks ass and I so wish I could get that channel but I live in an apartment so satellite is really not an option for me.

Also from what I've heard there are some beautiful prints of movies on MONSTERS HD that seem to exist only there ... movies that haven't even gotten a proper DVD release are being shown in stunning HDTV transfers on that channel.

I wonder if it will ever become a channel that cable companies will be able to offer?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[TBoneit]

Hopefully for you it will become available.

I've never seen a bad transfer yet. Of course I don't watch everything.

They tend to run themes, I think this weekend they're running japanese titles like Godzilla, Mothra, Mysterians, Rodan. Another time it was Mummy movies, and another theme being Friday the 13th series and so on.

I never even knew Rodan was in color as I had watched it on a B&W set.

That 30's movie I had seen on DVD and the DVD wasn't even near in picture or audio quality.

Cheers

[Nilfennasion]

The last thing I remember actually going to see at the flicks, as in actively declaring intent to go, is The Squid And The Whale, primarily because I could watch one of its actors reading the 'phone book for 90 minutes. But in retrospect, it was one of the most intriguing and intellectually stimulating experiences I have had in the theatre, ever.

The cinema used to be about selling an extraordinary experience. Just as American industry used to be about solid workmanship.

[FulciLives]

I used to go to the movies almost every weekend.

Now ... I can't even remember the last film I saw in a movie theater.

I'm being serious ... I really can't remember ... it's been that long!

I remember that I saw LAND OF THE DEAD twice but wasn't that like a year ago now?

I can't imagine that I haven't been to the theater since but if I did I sure can't remember it LOL

The next movie that will probably temp to the theater is GHOST RIDER (the movie based on the comic book).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[paulw]

I keep hoping the Networks will get a clue here in the USA.

If they started ABC Classics, NBC Classic and CBS Classics using content from the when they started broadcasting to oh say 1986 and moving forwards so that next year they went up to 1987 and so on. I'd be watching..

I think that you would have to go back to 1956 to see some of the stuff that you want. I guess we can all dream that one day it may be a reality..

[TBoneit]

I believe they telecine'd the shows that were broadcast live prior to Videotape being introduced. Ampex?

At least I seem to recall reading that they shot the live show off of a monitor onto film.

They don't understand that in the early days the shows were as good or better than what we see now.

Bob Hope on TV, or Jack Benny for comedy, Tennessee Ernie Ford or Dinah Shore or Perry Como for music Can't be beat.

If you've ever seen Fred Allen....

Anyway I can dream!

[Cornucopia]

It was called "Kinoscope". There were 3 kinds of shows back then...

1. Shows they did live, and knew they wanted to keep (in advance) and so, Kinoscoped.
2. Shows they did live, and didn't know they wanted in advance (often commercials)--these are gone forever.
3. Shows they filmed/edited ahead of time and telecined (including H'wood movies, newsreels, special presentations). Already on good quality film (like Lucy-man, they were smart!)

(this thread is so far OT!...)

Scott

[edDV]

It was called "Kinoscope". There were 3 kinds of shows back then...

1. Shows they did live, and knew they wanted to keep (in advance) and so, Kinoscoped.
2. Shows they did live, and didn't know they wanted in advance (often commercials)--these are gone forever.
3. Shows they filmed/edited ahead of time and telecined (including H'wood movies, newsreels, special presentations). Already on good quality film (like Lucy-man, they were smart!)

(this thread is so far OT!...)

Scott

Also eastern/central time got the live show. Mountain/Pacific/Alaska/Hawaii got the kinescope film version of the show.

The main problem they thought they were solving with the video tape recorder was delay for the various time zones. At first the picture was inferior to the kinescope for archive.

The first show to be fed west on video tape was "Douglas Edwards with the News".



The VR-1000 consisted of the big console on the right plus the right two racks of equipment.

[Nitemare]

Posted: Oct 16, 2006 10:10
(this thread is so far OT!...)

Not that far! Really. If Hollywood blames piracy for their financial woes, then we discussed that and we've expanded the discussion to include ways for them to fix this problem OR generate other revenue. Old TV shows on DVD is one way, making better films is another, etc.

We're still "topic related" aren't we?

[FulciLives]

Perhaps VIDEO ON DEMAND is one way to offer some of the old TV show stuff as once the VIDEO ON DEMAND infrastructure is there it would be a cheap way to distribute stuff that ... let's face it ... not that many people are going to "buy into" thus making traditional DVD releases not very friendly to the *cough* "bottom line".

- John "FulciLives" Coleman