Now showing in theaters - and at home
People are talking about Bubble because of its unique distribution plan. They also should note that it's a unique film with a cast of quality amateurs.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published January 31, 2006
The future isn't now, but it's nearer with the revolutionary strategy for distributing Steven Soderbergh's movie Bubble to audiences.
If successful, Bubble (see accompanying review) will pioneer a new era in movie distribution. Audiences would love it, the Hollywood establishment would use it whenever profitable, and some theater employees could begin looking for other employment.
Nearly two years ago, Soderbergh lunched with Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, who had recently added the Landmark Theaters chain to their multimedia portfolios. A deal was struck before dessert for the Academy Award-winning director to produce six movies that would be simultaneously released in theaters, on Cuban and Wagner's HDNet channel for high-definition television, and to home video through Magnolia Home Entertainment, a branch of the duo's 2929 Entertainment production company.
Bubble is the first experiment in that multiformat release plan. The low-budget drama opened in nearly 40 theaters nationwide on Friday, primarily in Landmark and privately owned venues, since major theater chains balked at booking the possible beginning of their end.
The same day, Bubble debuted on HDNet (www.hd.net) available to many cable and satellite subscribers with high-definition TV capabilities. (Check your cable or satellite provider for details.)
Today, the groundbreaking trifecta is completed by the release on Bubble for sale and rental on DVD. Cuban and Wagner essentially closed the traditional window of three or four months between theatrical and home video releases.
Theater owners don't like it since that window is what keeps them in business, giving them temporarily exclusive rights to movies. Online and bootleg piracy cut into that exclusivity in recent years, but Cuban and Wagner's plan is something exhibitors can't fight if it catches on. It's a scary proposition after box office ticket sales declined an alarming 7 percent in 2005.
Losing customers for Bubble isn't what worries theater owners. An art-house movie with no name stars, it wouldn't draw much of a crowd anyway. However, posting respectable ticket sales, TV ratings and video store revenues at once could inspire studios to apply the same approach to mainstream movies, perhaps even to blockbusters such as King Kong, the exhibitors' bread, butter and popcorn.
Wouldn't it be tempting to see Brokeback Mountain or Walk the Line right now within the comforts of home at a fraction of the cost of going to a theater? The brains behind Bubble think so.
This isn't the first time a movie has been released simultaneously in theaters and on television, but using home video technology makes Bubble unique. Laurence Olivier's version of Richard III made its U.S. debut in 1956 on the same day NBC showed the movie to New York City viewers. Kevin Kline's 1983 musical The Pirates of Penzance was shown on a Los Angeles pay channel during its run in only 92 theaters, the result of a booking boycott similar to Bubble's rejection by exhibitors.
HDNet also broadcast the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room in April 2005 during its limited theatrical run, although the DVD version wasn't released until two weeks ago. Like Bubble, the documentary is a product of Cuban and Wagner's multimedia conglomerate.
Other distributors seem already to have been inspired by their release strategy. The most prominent is Lions Gate Films, which announced a day-and-date release on DVD and in theaters for the horror flick See No Evil in May.
IFC Entertainment recently announced its First Take program for releasing up to 24 movies simultaneously in theaters and on a video-by-demand channel coming to many major cable companies. The lineup includes Spike Lee's faux documentary CSA: The Confederate States of America and American Gun, a collection of antiweapons stories starring Donald Sutherland and Forest Whitaker.
However, 2929 Entertainment is currently the only company with the vertical integration and ambition to combine theaters, DVDs and television in its distribution plans.
The situation has led to Cuban and Wagner being characterized as villains by exhibitors, filmmakers cherishing the theater experience and studios wishing they thought of it first.
National Association of Theater Owners president John Fithian recently called day-and-date distribution the biggest threat to the viability of the cinema industry today. Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) earned a standing ovation at that organization's ShowEast convention in Orlando by urging zero tolerance of booking such releases.
"I'm going to stop making movies if they end the cinema experience," Shyamalan told the Hollywood Reporter. "If there's a last film that's released only theatrically, it'll have my name on it."
Cuban and Wagner, who were at the Sundance Film Festival and unavailable for comment, prefer to consider themselves innovators in an industry showing signs of weakness and advocates of independent filmmakers who have better chances for exposure as all media avenues are explored. Bubble is only the first attempt to overhaul traditional ways of doing movie business.
"It's the beginning of a very slow process," Wagner told the Village Voice. "It's like throwing the first pitch in a nine-inning baseball game."
Bubble
Grade: B
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin Ashley, Misty Wilkins
Screenplay: Coleman Hough
Rating: R; brief profanity
Running time: 73 min.