Kevin Costner in Horizon – Coming to DVD
As anyone who's seen JFK will attest, Kevin Costner loves the theory conspiracy. Thus, in an interview dedicated to his passionate Western project Horizon: An American Saga, he stated that “DVD is not dead at all. This is what they want you to believe” seems to fit his character perfectly.
But unlike Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney he played in Oliver Stone's film, the actor may be right. Costner, the current king of papal television thanks to his hit Paramount series “Yellowstone,” had his own audience in mind. “Many people who like my films cannot get to the cinema and are waiting for this moment,” he added.
On the surface, Costner's statement does seem laughable, since it is aimed at Netflix ending its DVD delivery service last fall. This has led most people to express surprise that Netflix still has a DVD delivery service.
And yet… the DVD format is far from just for dads. Disc sales totaled £170 million in the UK last year, including DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD, according to the British Screen Entertainment Association. While it's not a big part of the overall £4.43 billion home entertainment market for the year, Blu-ray sales are actually growing. The desire for a physical product in the digital age helped HMV fund a return to its old Oxford Street store in November last year after going into administration in 2019.
“Physical visual entertainment sales in the UK are positive – it is a market that is highly served by fans who are inclined to buy high-quality 4K versions of additional content, which is a buoyant market as fans consider it the best of the cinema viewing experiences. “explains Louise Keen-Wood, Head of Marketing at BASE. “But also the rise of streaming has started to present an ownership challenge, especially for people juggling subscriptions. If you unsubscribe, you may lose your favorite TV program or movie, some TV shows that play on streamers as rights change hands and you suddenly stop watching them.
Oppenheimer's bestseller on Blu-ray
That's what Christopher Nolan told fans ahead of the Oppenheimer DVD release. He urged them to embrace “a version you can buy and have at home and put on your shelf so no evil streaming service can steal it from you,” telling the Washington Post that “the danger these days is that if things only exist in the streaming version, they are removed. They come and go, just like TV versions of movies. But the home video version can always be on hand, so people can always access it.”
Avatar director James Cameron agreed, telling Variety; “Streamers are denying us any access to some films. And I think people react with their natural reaction: “I'll buy this and watch it any time I want.”
This message definitely worked for Nolan. The 4K Ultra HD version of Oppenheimer sold out in its first week, with copies changing hands on eBay for as much as $200. Oppenheimer Award winner Cillian Murphy proves Nolan's point. He broke out in the 2002 zombie hit 28 Days Later, but try finding him on a streamer. Or, to be honest, a new disc. Copies on eBay cost over £50.
Dwayne Johnson in Black Adam, the best-selling DVD of 2023. Photo: Warner Bros.
And there are many similar examples. Do you like David Lynch? Want to watch his seminal debut, Eraserhead? Unfortunately, it is not available on streamers. Unusual “Dawn of the Dead”? Cocoon? Jack Nicholson in Prizzi's Honor? Or are you a fan of 1990s pop music and looking for Spice World? A boomer yearning for a thirty-something? How about the police classic Homicide: Life on the Street? No subscription will give you this.
Perhaps this is why Doctor Who DVDs sell so well: Whovian fans are well aware that the show's history is littered with missing tapes, forgotten episodes and unreleased classics. This may explain why The Snowman, the Doctor's 2012 Christmas special, spent several weeks in the top 10 DVD charts last year, according to BASE.
Keen-Wood stresses that the market is not just high-end 4K discs sold to cinemas. In these inflation-plagued times, she notes, family films make more financial sense on old-school DVDs. “Last year, Dwayne Johnson's Black Adam became the UK's best-selling DVD after a disappointing theatrical release,” she explains. “The price of DVDs has been the same for 15 years, but movie tickets for a family of five have become more expensive. Five tickets versus £9.99 for DVD and unlimited hours is an attractive proposition.”
A selection of DVDs sold on the Film Treasures website
Physical DVDs are also an important source of income for smaller films, which is the majority of interesting ones. Indie filmmaker Noam Kroll broke down the math in a recent blog post aimed at indie filmmakers. “If you're using digital advertising or social media advertising to promote a movie on streaming, you'll be lucky if you break even,” he explained. “In most cases, you will lose money even if you do everything right. It's not because advertising doesn't work, it's because your profit margin is virtually non-existent.”
He estimates that the average social media ad spend to secure iTunes rentals is $3, and viewers only pay $2.99 to watch a movie. “As soon as Apple takes a commission, you will lose money,” he complained. “And don’t get me started on Amazon. On the other hand, if you spend the same $3 to advertise a $20 DVD/Blu-Ray sale that costs $5 to produce and ship, you only make $12.”
Sufficient sales and that could be the difference between profit and loss for a small film, he argued, which could be a reason to buy a DVD year this week. Wes Anderson's main backer Indian Paintbrush, a production company owned by junk bond and aluminum magnate Steven Rales, recently bought the Criterion Collection, a DVD-only distributor of classic films that sells the Mulholland Drive films for about $40 and brings in an estimated $20 million a year . . The price has not been disclosed. But given the increasingly self-financing business model of old Hollywood—Costner poured $38 million of his own money into Horizon and Francis Ford Coppola poured $120 million into his poorly-reviewed Metropolis—they may soon be leaning on to Kroll's funding model. There's a CD coming out soon near you – everything you really love.
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