Some cinema chains in America are refusing to show Steven Soderbergh‘s new movie Bubble because it’s being released in a new way — in theaters, on DVD, and via pay-per-view all at once. The film is the first in a series that Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner‘s distribution company 2929 Entertainment will release from Soderbergh in that manner. Snip from CBC news story:
Bubble, a low-budget movie made with untried actors, is being sold on DVD and shown on cable TV the same day it debuts at the theatre. Theatre chains in more than 15 states have refused to show the film, saying Soderbergh’s plan will take a big chunk out of their bottom line. “It’s the biggest threat to the viability of the cinema industry today,” John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, said of the so-called “day and date” release strategy.
If a high-profile Hollywood name like Soderbergh, director of Sex, Lies and Videotape, Erin Brockovich and Traffic, is trying simultaneous release, there is too great a danger of the strategy becoming acceptable to the mainstream, the group says.
That would be the whole point, guys. As Soderbergh said a few months ago in Wired:
Name any big-title movie that’s come out in the last four years. It has been available in all formats on the day of release. It’s called piracy. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, Ocean’s Eleven, and Ocean’s Twelve – I saw them on Canal Street on opening day. Simultaneous release is already here. We’re just trying to gain control over it.
Link to CBC news item. (Thanks, Jeremy Gruman)
Image: The director with doll parts at Bubble‘s premiere last week in Parkersburg, West Virginia — the town in which it was filmed. (AP Photo/Parkersburg News & Sentinel, Jeff Baughan)
Previously on Boing Boing:
Trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble
Xeni interviews Steven Soderbergh in WIRED
Soderbergh and Cuban, Wagner’s 2929: Let’s break all the windows.
Reader Comment: Reuben says,
Boing Boing readers can contact their local theater chain’s customer relations department, and ask them why they are not showing the movie. I contacted Century Theaters, as I live in the Bay Area; their phone number can be found here.