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Night at the Museum

GERMANY AND GREAT BRITAIN EXHIBIT CHAINS BOYCOTT MOVIES ANNOUNCED EARLY ON DVD

The international edition of the North-American newspaper Herald Tribune, in an article sent from Paris by the journalist Doreen Carvajal, reports that exhibit chains in Germany such as Cinemaxx and CineStar and others from Great Britain such as Odeon and Vue started an intensive campaign last January against the fact that more commercial movies, the so-called blockbusters, have been accessible on DVD faster and faster for home video entertainment. This window, the period of time between the premiere in the theaters and the release for home entertainment, has become shorter and shorter. The financial “gentleman’s agreement” demands at least six months between each date. Today this window can be reduced to even less than three months.

In protest, these exhibit chains are boycotting the permanence of some movies now showing. In January, for example, feature presentations such as ‘Night at the Museum’ and ‘Eragon’, coincidentally both Fox productions, were pulled from the theaters. Fox had announced the release of ‘Night at the Museum’ on DVD for April 1st, thirteen weeks after the world premiere, and ‘Eragon’ for Easter.

The discussion involves various instances of the market, as the regular path of a movie, after theaters to home entertainment (DVD), passes by Pay-per-View, cable TV and finally open TV. The viability of the permanence of a movie in the theaters has been discussed even more these days, especially if the commercial valor of the movie is modest. In France, for instance, this six-month window is compulsory. In many other places, this agreement has been broken. According to Ad Westrade, president of the International Union of Cinemas, a group in Paris that represents exhibitors from fifteen countries, the first solution to this problem has been “to say no!” and to ban certain movies from the big screen.