Warner Bros sells movies
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The Associated Press
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mart 25, 2009 00:00
LOS ANGELES - Warner Bros. is reaching into its film vaults so it can sell old movies on made-to-order DVDs in a move it hopes will goose sales of a vital product in a downturn.
Starting Monday, the studio started selling copies of 150 films from the silent era to the 1980s Brat Pack that have never been released on DVD. Internet downloads of the movies will cost $14.95, while DVDs sent in the mail are $19.95. Both can be ordered at www.warnerarchive.com.
The initiative, which Warner claims is the first of its kind for a major studio, is an effort by the Time Warner Inc. subsidiary to combat what could be a fundamental decline in demand for DVD purchases Ğ a falloff that can be blamed on market saturation as much as the recession.
Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger warned of this shift last month when he said most U.S. households own 80 DVDs already, leading people to become "more selective" about what discs they buy.
Warner's decision to open up its vault "sounds like it's a risk-free way for them to generate a little money on some very old content," Adams said. By making the DVDs only when a customer orders the movies, Warner doesn't have to worry about filling up a warehouse with inventory that struggles to sell.
Many of the titles Warner is releasing in the new venture have made the rounds on another Time Warner subsidiary, the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, and on VHS. But the studio will keep mining a 6,800-feature film library, amassed when Ted Turner bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's archive in 1986, which in turn was bought by Time Warner a decade later.
Twenty more films or TV shows will be added to the program of re-releases each month, with 300 expected by year's end. To put it in perspective, the studio has released only about 1,100 movies on DVD since the technology was spawned 12 years ago.
"There are still thousands of movies that we own that consumers haven't been able to get," said George Feltenstein, senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing for Warner Home Video. "I expect that we'll be selling thousands of copies of every title over a period of time."
The initiative, which Warner claims is the first of its kind for a major studio, is an effort by the Time Warner Inc. subsidiary to combat what could be a fundamental decline in demand for DVD purchases Ğ a falloff that can be blamed on market saturation as much as the recession.
Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger warned of this shift last month when he said most U.S. households own 80 DVDs already, leading people to become "more selective" about what discs they buy.
Warner's decision to open up its vault "sounds like it's a risk-free way for them to generate a little money on some very old content," Adams said. By making the DVDs only when a customer orders the movies, Warner doesn't have to worry about filling up a warehouse with inventory that struggles to sell.
Many of the titles Warner is releasing in the new venture have made the rounds on another Time Warner subsidiary, the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, and on VHS. But the studio will keep mining a 6,800-feature film library, amassed when Ted Turner bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's archive in 1986, which in turn was bought by Time Warner a decade later.
Twenty more films or TV shows will be added to the program of re-releases each month, with 300 expected by year's end. To put it in perspective, the studio has released only about 1,100 movies on DVD since the technology was spawned 12 years ago.
"There are still thousands of movies that we own that consumers haven't been able to get," said George Feltenstein, senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing for Warner Home Video. "I expect that we'll be selling thousands of copies of every title over a period of time."