Maybe this is why “Avatar” has been selling so well on Blu-Ray and DVD.
If you want to rent the popular film, you may have to wait.
Redbox has reached a new agreement with 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures that ends a long-term lawsuit against the company and allows users to still rent films from the popular service…if you want to wait four weeks after they’re released that is.
The deals, announced Thursday, ensure that popular movies such as “Avatar” and “It’s Complicated” will be available through the $1-a-day rental kiosks — albeit about four weeks after they’re available on DVD. The studios had fought to impose a waiting period to prevent discount rentals from cannibalizing higher-margin DVD sales and rentals.
Redbox President Mitch Lowe issued a statement saying the distribution agreements ensure an ample supply of DVDs for its 20,000 kiosks and allow it to keep the same low rental prices. Under conditions of the agreements, Redbox said it would drop its lawsuits against Fox and Universal.
Home entertainment giant Warner Bros. was the first to reach a deal with Redbox that imposed the 28-day wait. Warner and other studios have long maintained that the $1-a-night kiosk rentals should play the same role for DVDs that discount theaters, which show movies several months after they debut in first-run cineplexes, do for films: to serve as an alternative for filmgoers who don’t mind waiting to pay less.
I’m in the minority, I’m sure, but my reaction to these kinds of deals (a similar one must have been cut with Netflix because I’m hawing to wait until May 20th) is an adamant refusal to purchase the DVDs until their price drops below the cost of a decent hamburger (about $5).
In the meantime, I will be content waiting the extra month to watch movies like Sherlock Holmes and Avatar, all the while stewing a deep resentment for the studios.
For the studios are essentially punishing people who had no intention of buying the movie in the first place using a dubious argument this will increase DVD sales by a few percentages (small relative to the total viewing public).
The point being if I like a movie I will likely buy the DVD regardless of it being available for rent. Making me wait for it has the opposite effect.
I would call for a wide-spread protest, but I fear the majority of the public is already lost to the “sure, manipulate me” way of thinking.
I didn’t see the movie in the theater so waiting an extra month to see it means nothing to me. I don’t know if I will buy Avatar but I do know that I won’t buy it until after I have seen it and I won’t see it (or any other movie) in the theater.