On a slow news day (thus far), here's a fun little piece of news. American Airlines will be airing the Transformers movie on select flights to certain countires in November. If you're traveling international in November, a least you'll have a little something to keep 2.5 hours occupied. To Brazil (Boeing 777 aircraft only) To Central and South America (Boeing 777 aircraft only To China To Germany & Switzerland (Boeing 777 aircraft only) To India To Japan To the United Kingdom (Boeing 777 aircraft only)
So, how does this affect this financial figures for the movie? That is to say, when they total up all the money this juggernaut has made so far, where do airline showings fit it? Do the airlines pay for the movie in a big chunk up front to the studio or do people have to pay individually from their seats? Just wonderin'
I'm assuming it doesn't raise the gross, as far as theatre sales go. Most of the movies featured on the airline are either out on DVD (as TF will be) or out very soon after. I'm assuming they pay one big lump sum to have the rights to this movie to show on the airlines. I don't know if it's still the case, but I believe movie rental stores used to pay something like $100 for each copy of a movie for use in their store. (If anyone remembers the old TV guide format, their "Coming out on video" section used to feature prices like this). If video stores still do this, I wonder if that's how AA is being charged. X dollars for every copy of the movie they want.
By november, anybody who wants to watch Transformers will already have their own copy, and who doesn't own a portable dvd player nowadays? or Ipod, or Smartphone, or anything else that would play it. I fly maybe 5 times a year, but I don't see hardly anybody paying money for an in flight film, don't even know why the airlines still bother.
What about flying to the U.S. on AA, seeing the movie on the plane (when I went to Botcon, the in-flight movie was included in the ticket ... that's pretty much the case for international flights), then buying the DVD in the U.S. because it won't be available everywhere in the world in October? Sounds like a plan. -airfox
Movies on planes are typically DVD's with their own region----region 8 (also the region on cruise ships). So it doesn't count for tickets/gross.
True video stores would pay between $70-90 for VHS back in the day, actually up until the death of VHS. DVD is considered a sell-through product and able to be purchased by anyone on the day of release, some vhs were also released using this same strategy. If I remember correctly E.T. was the first VHS available to buy at a reasonable price and that was through McDonalds.
I'm going to India in January. Too bad it will probably be gone by then -- it's going to be a LOOOOOONG flight.