It's already happened several times I know about, and I see many signs going forward.

More than 4? Absolutely!

Let's meet here at the end of the year. :O)

Whats more likely is everything will come pay per view. Order up the movie in the comfort of your own home theatre and no disturbing movie theatre people near you. If you want to keep a copy of the movie, it will be available about 2 months later and you will just hit record dvd and take a copy off there. Plus you'll also have a choice of getting the movie in HD as well.

The days of blockbuster and the cineplex are just about over.

I think you are close in your prediction, but I think I would modify it slightly. The reason for such a shift will have as much to do with shifts in distribution as it will have to do with availability of inexpensive, high-quality acquisition and editing equipment. We've actually had the latter for quite awhile now (how long ago did Soderberg do his movie with video cameras?). What is rapidly changing is delivery. Movie on demand via a whole host of channels (satellite, cable, Internet) is finally becoming a reality. I think this will have much more to do with the shift to low-budget films.

Well as you know the normal flow is.......
Make movie show test markets.
If good then theaters, hotel PPV, cable PPV, DVD, cable, network (ABC, NBC, CBS, etc)
if not good DVD then perhaps cable, then network.

I would hit the hotel people OnCommand, Lodgenet, Instant Movies, if you have
a good product they might put it in hotels. There has not been anything good
for them for awhile. This might get some exposure. Theaters have the inde nights but
far and few between.

Just my thought.

Coursedesign, what movies?

The main problem with that is that retailers/rental stores demand longer windows, not shorter ones. So coming out on DVD first would be great - however there is a long process involved, it is not as simple as someomne making a movie and saying "I am gonna put this out on DVD to the Blockbusters, Hollywood Videos" and so on. In other words from theatre to rental to PPV to Pay Cable to network to "free" cable have a time table. Putting it out on video would/should start the timetable so in days or 90 days that film goes into theatrs and also to cut ouw bin and also starts running on PPV I see it sort crushing the "system" as it were.

One of the more famous films that had somehting like this happen was The great Santini A.K.A The Ace. They sold video rights and cable rights thinking it was going to do nothint at the boxoffice. However critics latched on to the film and by the time the film was actually getting booked into theatres it had played PPV and was also out on Video and being aired on Pay Cable.

I am all for the threatrical experience however most indy/low budget films do not have the need to be seen in a theatre. And when you do see most of them in a theatre they are in a shoebox sized multiplex or a small art house anyway. Don't get me wrong - bigger films get the same treatment. I saw the new Harry Potter film is a shoebox sized theatre with basic stereo sound. This was a multiplex and the main surorund wired theatre showed it and the film slowly runs down a long hallway to the second theatre - where I saw it on a smaller screen and in stereo.

Anyhow i can't see first run films getting PPV, Cable and theatre at the same time and after DVD.

How does one actually get an audience with the hotel people? Their websites don't appear to have a "submitt domos here" link.

You need to have a rep for the most part. For a few films I have worked on the "rights" were sold to a middle man who than went out and sold it to places like PPV and HBO. I was also approached directly at the VSDA trade show in Vegas one year...but that was because they knew we did other film other than the one they had purchased form the "thrid party".

I believe the shift I am predicting is based on a top-down review of the economics of feature films from production through distribution.

Many studios, large and small, are suffering, and they have already decided that there will be very few top-gross deals going forward, even for top stars. The studios will just say "no".

The next step for them is to look at where the profits are coming from.

Oh.

It seems that 80% of the profits are coming from DVD sales. Hmmm.

DVDs are inexpensive to make, theater distribution is very expensive (many millions of dollars for the film prints alone).

The latter cost is no problem if the movie is a "given success."

If not, well, it would make a lot more sense to inexpensively release it on DVD first, and if it should accidentally be a success there, then go to the now justified expense of releasing it in theaters. In case of failure, the studio is out a lot less money. In case you haven't noticed, there have been a lot of expensive flops lately (and to be fair, also a healthy crop of really good 2005 movies).

I think the marketing of feature films will be more and more adapted to this release model (this will need adaptation for sure).

The exception here may be the really hot tickets, but even then it won't always be a given that it would qualify as an exception.