Commentary

Oscar Winner 'Hurt Locker' In Few Theaters: So Who's Really Getting Hurt?

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 11, 2010

In the vast entertainment landscape, consumers should be able to get their entertainment options in all formats.

It's all about price.

But when it comes to the Oscar-award-winning "The Hurt Locker, theater owners have made sort of an old-time stand. It's based on the fact the movie has already been in DVD release since January. When that happens, there is no turning back to theaters.

So you can forget about the Oscar revenue effect for "Hurt Locker." The movie has been playing in 300 theaters, not anywhere near the 3,000 it could be playing in, if it were at a wider screen release from a big studio.

It comes from upstart Summit Entertainment, the company that brought the recent "Twilight" movie to the big screen.

One major question: Where was the planning on this? The movie got much buzz early in the year. Maybe there was little expectation it would reach this kind of level. The same thing happened to 2006 Best Picture Oscar winner "Crash" from Lionsgate.

Are theaters owners short-sighted? Perhaps they, and Summit, should find a way to adjust their business model --- a better price break for theaters owners, for example -- to gain the scale Summit is looking for, if not to curry more favor for Summit's next release.

With schedules already set for other releases, some theater owners may not be to blame. But considering how many flops there are, you would think they would take a chance on what should be more of a sure thing.

In television, it's the content owners who are being cautious -- at least about digital distribution. For premium TV digital area Hulu, content owners can hold back -- Viacom did this recently with "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" -- because there isn't enough money to be made.

Time Warner and CBS also won't go near Hulu - because viewers are getting the stuff for free, and because Hulu's advertising model doesn't generate enough revenue to make it worthwhile.

But maybe this too is backwards. By many estimates, the Internet doesn't hurt TV; it helps it, as a marketing tool. Movies on DVDs? "Hurt Locker" did big DVD business. Doesn't that say something about what it might do elsewhere?

Down the road, everyone wants more bucks -- content owners and distributors. Perhaps all will have to do with somewhat less on a per-viewer, per theater-goer basis, with the risk of gaining more in the long-term.

Still, it's strange that only a fraction of movie-going consumers can get to see the latest Best Picture winner on a big screen.

The potential? Hmm... Nielsen says 41.3 million viewers watched the Oscars on ABC. I'm sure there's a significant percentage who are interested in a movie they probably didn't know about a couple of months ago -- a film to be seen in its intended original format.

2 comments about "Oscar Winner 'Hurt Locker' In Few Theaters: So Who's Really Getting Hurt?".

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Joshua Chasin from KnotSimpler, March 11, 2010 at 10:49 a.m.
Perhaps a shame for us consumers/moviegoers, and for the artists who made tthe film. But how does the studio make more money-- if I buy a movie ticket, or if I buy he DVD? I don't know the answer, but the quetion is probably important. Of course, I know how the theater makes more money...
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Paul Van winkle from FUNCTION, March 11, 2010 at 12:12 p.m.

Agree, Wayne. Was one of the few who saw "Hurt" in a theatre upon initial release. It's a big screen film.

Seems to me there're a few "market" dynamics at work that propel this and don't we live in interestingly neurotic times:

a. Short-and-shorter--term obsessive-compulsive behavior plus quarter-to-quarter demands for double-digit returns (mix w/ hubris). It's either a mega-FX-blockbuster with nothing deep or emotionally authentic, made by an A-Team, or why get behind it? The only way to get big is by building a bigger, more perfectly empty shell, and that takes pumped up pimping, not "art".

2. With the sheer number of C-Minus films being puked out, and so few truly interesting films, there seems an even more reduced ability by Hollowood to predict which will actually do big business (ever-bigger receipts) -- and even less ability to predict which if any have actual creative "merit".

c. Film ain't defined by the culture that produces or consumes it as an "art" anymore -- it's assembly-line commerce - and distraction. Which is why telling good (better?) stories has been brushed aside as irrelevant and too hard, and most people are either too jaded or too distracted and wouldn't know the elements of a good story if it hit them in their 3D glasses. There's also no new well for new myths. If I see one more "Hero's Journey" framework, I'll spear myself.

It's speed-dating + soul-selling. And it lives by uber-rabid whoring and selling off of everything - rights, licensing, the "back-end", media -- anything to make a faster buck, now. Damn the audience "experience", screw the story, to hell with cohesion. Focus on the one and only God (Margin), and by the way, did you know all the goddamned revenue from DVD sales is predicted to go bye-bye? Get thee latest pap into DVD production and onto a phone ap before they yell "wrap", pronto. (Didn't you hear? Kids watch movies on their iPhones and computers now.)