One of the things that's driving films in a particular direction is that the after market value of them is dropping really fast and in many segments of it, not just DVDs. Pay television is dropping.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Because of the way tech is changing, and becoming cheaper and user-friendly, it's becoming easier to make films cheaply, maintaining quality.
The movie business has been in enormous flux. It's always changing, and you've got to scramble. The Internet came along and devoured the DVD backend of the movie business. Suddenly you're watching dollars turn into nickels, and that's interesting to me.
Wal-Mart is the biggest distributor of DVDs out there, but personally, I think their manufacturing policies have destroyed our economy, and they don't pay their employees enough. I have massive problems with them.
Movies are getting more and more expensive to distribute. You need a lot of money to get people into theaters.
So much of selling a film in the industry is about creating a fulcrum where all the pressure comes to bear, and something seems suddenly valuable and approved by an audience. It's amazing how people could pick up tons of films on the cheap, but they don't because they wait until everything is laid out for them.
There is a certain amount of commerce in the film industry in as much as you have value, and for a moment, your value goes up, then it all disappears again.
We have a very wide range of content, but the brand-newest movies, what's happening with those is a $30 pay-per-view option - not from Netflix but from DirecTV and others - of movies that are in the theater.
The entertainment industry at large has pretty much given away high definition to consumers. They haven't really charged a premium for it on television. That makes consumers more likely to buy Blu-ray but less likely to pay a premium for it.
The thing about movies these days is that the commerce end of it is so inflated and financiers are just expecting this enormous return on their investment.
The movie industry has collapsed into two types of film - the $100 million blockbuster or the small independent film of $1 million or less - and the huge middle ground has been lost. Cable is filling that void.