In the Future, Movie Costs Will Be Determined by Screen Size, Says DreamWorks CEO

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg believes that the movie industry has a whole lot of change coming to it. And this change seems pretty darn major.

In a Variety Magazine report, Katzenberg laid out some of his thoughts on his industry’s future.

“A movie will come out and you will have 17 days, that’s exactly three weekends, which is 95% of the revenue for 98% of movies,” Katzenberg said. He then added that, on the 18th day, movies would become available on pretty much any device. This would be a pretty big switch from the current setup, where movies sometimes take several months to release digitally.

He also addressed pricing, which he believes will scale depending on the size of the screen a movie is watched on.

“A movie screen will be $15. A 75-in. TV will be $4. A smartphone will be $1.99,” he stated.

Would this type of pricing fly with consumers? That remains to be seen. It’s certainly not the way things work for most types of digital media; for instance, you aren’t charged more or less for an MP3 depending on the size of the speakers you’re using. Movies and TV shows purchased from a company like Amazon or Apple will play on portable devices as well as set-top streaming boxes, and buying for one platform usually means you have support for the others.

Long story short, Katzenberg’s predictions seem like a step backward, at least for consumers. They sound like a delight for media companies who want to charge those consumers multiple times to buy the same media. Based on the past and present of digital media, that doesn’t feel like the direction we’re going in.

What do you think of Katezenberg’s thoughts on the future of movies? Do you think they’ll come true, or is the CEO of a major film production company extremely off base? Leave your comments below.

[Source: ComputerWorld]