By: Open Book
Not all DVD rentals are created equal and the question and answer in Hollywood? Will DVD rental be good for business? The answer yes, only applies to RedBox and Netflix. One of the ways film studios like Summit, Fox and Warner Bros. is fighting back against Red-Box and Netflix (who’s cornered the market on cheap DVD rentals) is by offering consumers two disc combo package deals. Now, if you rent a new released blockbuster film at Red-Box or Netflix for one dollar, what fans will see is the film only. Meaning, if consumers wish to see interviews, documentaries, the making of the film or commentary etc…. They will have to purchase the two-disc combo package deals, which retail for about twenty-five dollars online at Amazon and Wal-Mart.
So films that were expected to do well at the box office, studios planned ahead and put together a compilation of documentaries, interviews and commentary to include on DVD’s. What film studios are asking this holiday season? Will fans pay for the added bonus features?
Two of the recent DVD’s released in time for the holiday season, are Twilight: Eclipse and Inception. Both films performed really well at the box office this summer and both feature special edition two-disc packages.
Twilight: Eclipse- Two-Disc Special Edition is pretty extensive full of deleted scenes, interviews, a six part documentary, music videos and commentary by both actors Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, then more commentary featuring Stephanie Meyers (the author of the Twilight series) and Wyck Godfrey (the producer of the film series). The commentary by Meyer’s and Godfrey was much more insightful and geared toward an adult audience and the two lead actors in the film, did their best to appeal to a teen audience. None, the less, the Twilight: Eclipse Two Disc Special Edition featuring documentaries, interviews etc…is worth the money if you are a fan of the series but buyers of Blu-ray beware.
What are some of the complaints to crop up so far? Customers, who purchased the recent Twilight: Eclipse Special Edition Blu-ray + Disc combo packages on Amazon, believe distributors of the film series ripped them off!! DVD distributors of Twilight: Eclipse offer combo package deals where fans get one Blu-ray single disc with the film on one side and the special features on a second standard disc. The problem is if you own Blu-Ray technology, you only get half of the benefits of owning the Blu-ray set! Therefore, the advertising and extra money consumers are being asked to pay, expecting to get full Blu-Ray features, are misleading and some fans are upset.
Inception: Two-Disc Blu-ray Edition retails for about eighteen dollars online. In this film consumers will see a documentary explaining the concept of “Extraction” and how the cast achieved some of the amazing moments. Plus, the ideas behind dream share technology and another documentary on the subconscious, again well worth the money, not to mention the film and story is just as amazing to watch. However, all these features are only offered on Blu-ray technology as of now. Consumers have given this combo package deal very high marks on Amazon.
The question now is, will the hard-core fans bite and fork over twenty-five dollars to get their favorite films and special features? Will film studios see a profit from offering the blockbuster films two-disc combo package deals? I guess this strategy is still unproven and studios will have to wait and see if it pays off this holiday season.
Please join us on Monday: December 13, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. EST. There will be a live discussion about this topic and on the RESPECT! article below.
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Great Article!
Personally I have started renting movies from Redbox. I don’t have the money right now to run out and buy the combo deals. I’ve always felt that the combo deals are trying to get people to buy blu-ray players. (which i’m doing after the holidays)
i do like listening to the commentaries and all the extras but I just don’t feel like one should have to buy another machine to do it. I look at it this way….I’ve already paid money to see the film in theaters, now i’m paying money to rent the film to watch it again and you want me to cough up my hard earned money to hear someone talk about it? That’s a hard pill for me to swallow. Personally the studios can only bleed the money out of people for so long.
Yeah, I agree. We do rent from Redbox,pay per view or netflix. We only buy certain movies with all the bells and whistles (ie. Harry Potter franchise, Twilight franchise). We do have a blu ray player but that is because my hubby likes to keep up with the technology out there.
We use to buy more when my boys were younger a lot of Disney movies here.
Part of the thing about buying is we never watch. For example I have the Remember Me blu ray which was bought when it came out and its still sealed. Not that I didn’t enjoy the movie, its just I’m the only one that will watch it. I do use it as a threat to my teenage boys that we will all sit and watch it when they whine about nothing to watch.
Kim,
LOL using RP as a threat. That’s a good one. IMO, he is one of the most non threatening people out there. 🙂
Oh I agree, but to two teenage boys having to sit through a “chick flick” as they call it, is torture. Personally I have no problem to sit through a good movie like Remember Me.
Boys typically want the surround sound, digital, high def picture quality. They want movies that look like video games! Sitting thru a movie that has minimal special effects is torture for them!
Well, Rob is torture to them, unless its him in Harry Potter.
But you are right the more special effects the more the guys flock to the movie. I would have to say that part of this reasoning is because of the video games that they play.
I personally think the draw to these DVD special editions are the documentaries. The commentary on Eclipse and other DVD’s are only interesting to listen to if u can listen to the directors, writers or actors involved, reflect and talk about their process. Listening to Rob and Kristen’s commentary on Eclipse was painful. Meyer’s and Godfrey was much more informative.
However, Summit has really made customers angry by misleading them with their Blu-ray DVD package for Eclispe.
You have me worried, I asked for that for Christmas. I also think my hubby already bought it. I guess I can always swap it out for the DVD package.
I’m curious – is there a cost differential to make it in blu-ray vs regular disc?
Does anyone know?
I completely agree with you. I love all the behind the scenes goodies. I just don’t think that the public has to be bled financially dry to it.
Was listening to R/K commentary like nails on a chalkboard? LOL I read about it. I figured thats good enough.
I have never listen to the commentary until my friend told me the Twilight commentary was pretty good, I still haven’t listen to it all the way through.
I don’t know why I don’t I like to learn how things are done, its never been something I’ve done.
Now I love the deleted scenes or the blooper reals, those are usually my favorite.
The commentary was bad between R/K because K is not a very deep thinker. Rob tries to open up the conversation but K has a very hard time keeping up with him. So they just resort to laughing and cracking jokes. It’s comes off as being very silly!!!
I’ve heard the comments from others who listened to the commentary. So my opinion is based on heresay. However, it’s sounds about par for the course. Therefore, not watching it! I’m using my power of being a consumer to not waste that hour of my life !
Well I may the only odd ball here. I have Netflix and a Blockbuster card. However, I rarely rent movies at the store anymore. I either stream them via Netflix or put them in the queue to have Netflix mail them to me.
Personally, I’m not the thrilled with any of the movie extras. Even the blu-ray movies I purchased and own I honestly don’t look at all the ‘extras’. I bought the blu-ray movies for picture quality. I even have the digital copies that I haven’t loaded anywhere yet, because my home network isn’t setup to stream movies just yet. I consider myself an early adopter so the digital copy stuff is really applicable for PC’s/laptops right now.
I have to say that it has taken other studios awhile to catch on to the digital copy. For the longest time Disney was the only company that I knew of doing that, which made sense since parents use the movies in so many different devices to entertain their children.
Lurker!
I get Netflix on my computer and rent video on demand from Amazon. However, the Blu-ray cost more because they cost more for a distributor to produce than a DVD. I imagine the distribution for the Blu-ray+DVD package deal for Eclipse was there way of trying to cut cost. Meanwhile, fooling the customers into thinking they were getting a full Blu-ray edition. I heard some fans went out and purchased the regular DVD two-disc set and paid nearly 45.00 after it was all over.
OH, makes sense. Deceptive advertising maybe? However, this is one business strategy to make a higher margin. DVD production has to be quite cheap now. The technology is all over the place. So this is their way of adding to the bottom line pretty inexpensively. Sort of slick if you ask me.
Oh! It’s very slick!! With all the warnings and complaints on Amazon customers are not buying the Blu-ray combo. This is bad for Summit because they will see there profits drop because of it.
You know what’s interesting is that the studios will think about this multi combo pack for each future movie. I did just look at ToyStory 3 and the packaging clearly states Blu Ray and DVD disc combo. So this must be a packaging theme.
Yeah! It is a theme but Inception did the same thing but consumers got the full benefits on Blu-ray and they got the DVD as a bonus.
Well ladies,
Hubby just got home from work and dinner is done. Catch up with you soon. night
Good night Kneon! Nice talking to u!
Lurker!
I’m going to wrap things up as well!!! But I have one more thing to say.
I read on THR where Summit was bragging about making 3 million dollars the day Eclipse came out on DVD. The huge profit was off of the Blu-Ray combo packages they were selling. So they really got over on the fans who trusted they would not try to cut cost by giving them half of what they paid for!!!
Thanks Open Book! Have a great night.
GoodNight!!! I’m really off now…LOL!
Although distributors enjoyed a nice profit from the Blu-Ray DVD scam the first weekend out. I’m sure the sales over the holidays will not be, after this deception. This movie studio can really be relied upon for putting out poor quality products that’s for sure.
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