Far Removed From the Multiplex

FAR REMOVED FROM THE MULTIPLEX
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: John Horn]
More on the LA Times Entertainment Poll. For decades, the movie business has followed an inflexible formula: Produce features, show them first in theaters, release them on video, then broadcast them on television. But what a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll of teens and young adults has found is that Hollywood's rickety model is poised to be torn apart. With an array of devices competing to fill their leisure time, today's teens and young adults show diminishing interest in adhering to Hollywood tradition. They're willing to watch brand-new movies at home rather than in theaters, are starting to use their PCs as their entertainment gateway and are slowly turning to their iPods and cellphones for video programming. They still crave to be entertained, but not necessarily inside a movie theater. For years, theater owners and movie studios have argued about the timing of home video releases. The people running the multiplexes want to keep the wait period between theatrical debut and the DVD's first day on sale as long as possible. The studios have been pushing to shrink that gap (it now averages about 20 weeks) to minimize the need for two separate advertising campaigns. The poll found that many teens and young adults would be happy if that window were eliminated altogether. Asked where they'd prefer to watch a new movie if it were simultaneously available at home and in theaters, about a third said they would choose to stay at home, and another third said it depended on the movie. Going to movies at theaters still has appeal, particularly for younger teens, but among respondents ages 21 to 24, 56% said they wanted to see the new movie at home, and only 9% said they would rather travel to a theater. Based on the box-office popularity of many critically savaged films, it should come as no surprise that teens and young adults care little about what reviewers think. In deciding what to see, their friends' judgments are the ones that matter. Those opinions are sometimes spread instantly, with almost a quarter of teenagers and young adults sharing their opinions during or right after the movie.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-et-pollmovies8aug08,1,...
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