Movie Rentals, Special Features No Longer A Match
Alyssa Weinstein
Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: Entertainment
"Slumdog Millionaire," for example, will feature the usual selection of bonus features. The rental version, however, will only have the film itself and trailers for other upcoming Fox DVDs. It seems that "Slumdog Millionaire" will be the test for this experiment. If it works, viewers will probably be seeing a lot of other studios employing this method.
This new development claims that this is also being done for the benefit of rental places like Blockbuster and neighborhood video stores. If the versions of these movies are cheaper to sell, then the price of rentals will go down as well. Therefore the renter will be paying less to see just the movie. If they are interested in the special features, then they will go out and buy the movie.
One of the main difficulties might be what the people who rent movies will think when they go into the video store expecting to find special features on their rentals, and not having them. Some customers will want the full version and will feel cheated.
If this strategy does in fact work, it might change the way people rent videos in the future.
In this economy it seems nothing is sacred anymore. Even renting a movie on a Saturday night.
This new development claims that this is also being done for the benefit of rental places like Blockbuster and neighborhood video stores. If the versions of these movies are cheaper to sell, then the price of rentals will go down as well. Therefore the renter will be paying less to see just the movie. If they are interested in the special features, then they will go out and buy the movie.
One of the main difficulties might be what the people who rent movies will think when they go into the video store expecting to find special features on their rentals, and not having them. Some customers will want the full version and will feel cheated.
If this strategy does in fact work, it might change the way people rent videos in the future.
In this economy it seems nothing is sacred anymore. Even renting a movie on a Saturday night.
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