Adoption of Simultaneous Distribution - Essay Example

Simultaneous release becomes valid only for films which cost relatively little to produce and distributors and film-makers who spend millions of dollars in marketing and making a movie would benefit more from a staggered release since they require a large input from the box office to remain profitable. The advantage of the simultaneous release is that gives a large input to the filmmaker in one go which means that a movie which costs 20 million to make might net a profit of five million with the simultaneous release (Waxman, 2006).

On the other hand, a film which comes with a total bill of $200 million will need a staggered release so that at every stage of the release the filmmaker can recover a part of the production cost and hope to increase his/her profits (Waxman, 2006). To make everyone adopt simultaneous release would be to enforce an innovation upon individuals who may not wish to follow it. Therefore, for small productions and those which cost very little to bring to the market, a policy of simultaneous release would be much better and perhaps more profitable than a staggered release to the public.

This idea was strongly supported by Godas (2005) who is the founder of Dogwoof Digital which is the company that went for a simultaneous release of its low-budget homegrown production titled ‘EMR’. While giving the advantages of simultaneous release, Godas (2005) also describes the idea of having a staggered release and mentions that “this model works well with larger films (Godas, 2005, P. 1)”. While simultaneous release can be seen as a well-employed method for film distribution when it comes to small productions, larger films and movies which costs many millions may not see this as a useful method for allowing the public to access movies.

Of course, it is difficult to say how the future will take shape since major film producers such as George Lucas have already mentioned the benefits of simultaneous release as a means of fighting piracy. Additionally, the innovations used by independent producers and filmmakers may become attractive to larger movie houses but for the most part, what independent release has done for major movie studios is to shrink the window between launching a movie at the box office and launching it on DVD for rentals (Godas, 2005).

Undoubtedly, the theatrical experience and the home movie-watching experience are two different things and the impact of a work of art in the cinema and the home may be quite different. Both experiences have their value and the separation of the experience with a time window may be very valuable to film producers who are dependent on repeat business and having as many people watch their film as many times to make sure they get their money back. On the other hand, simultaneous release would allow independent film producers access to several channels of making money at once which would give them a significant amount of receipts to recover the money spent in making the film. Therefore, everyone should not adopt a policy which is profitable only for a few.