Blog 3 - The Screening Room

It was in 2002 that the now infamous Sean Parker gave Napster to the world. The platform shook the music industry as it allowed users to share music files, leading to people not buying music as they could just download it. So it’s only fitting that 14 years later Sean Parker would be the man to come forth with plans that would shake and disrupt the movie industry. His idea ‘Screening Room’ proposed that people would be able to get day-and-date new movie releases in their own homes. It’s understandable as to why this shook Hollywood and started a chain reaction that is still going to this day.

The idea of Screening Room is very similar to an on-demand rental service, similar to the one Amazon Instant Video offers now.

Sean Parker

However it combines this idea with NowTV as the project would come in the form of a box. The box itself would cost around $150 dollars and then that would allow consumers to rent brand new day of release films for $50 a movie for 48 hours. It can be instantly seen how this would be an issue for the industry, not so much for Hollywood (although we’ll come to that) but the cinema industry. If people could access brand new films in the comfort of their home, why would anyone go to the cinema? And with that, cinema’s would die out, be gone, cease to exist. Or would they?

Peter Jackson

Hollywood is split on this new service and what it means for the industry. Although against what you might expect many prolific film directors are on the side of Parker and Screening Room. Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams are just a few of the directors that stand behind the service, it seems strange as all three are blockbuster filmmakers that might expect their films to be shown in cinemas. Jackson was quoted defending the service saying that it wouldn’t take everyone away from movie theatres but instead…

“Screening Room, however, is very carefully designed to capture an audience that does not currently go to the cinema … Screening Room will expand the audience for a movie – not shift it from cinema to living room.”

Jackson is claiming that the people who can’t go to the cinema due to personal lives or other circumstances, would be able to stay up-to-date on current releases by accessing them in their living rooms. The key issue with the service is no consumers without a stable upper-middle/upper-class job would actually be able to afford the service. Cinema tickets in the US are currently averaged at $8.93 a ticket, cheaper than what screening room are offering, but when it’s stacked up with the cost of getting the cinema, any food and potentially a babysitter for those with children it doesn’t come far off.

Whereas Jackson and company seemingly have the audience’s ease and comfort at the forefront of their argument, the opposition of Christopher Nolan and James Cameron claim the “exclusive theatre presentation” is more important. The argument becomes the sanctity of the cinema experience versus convenience. 

At the end of the day as much as directors endorse or warn of the service the decision it's going to come down to is the studio's and whether they want to distribute through Screening Room as well as movie theatre’s. It was early in 2017 that real talks began with studio's about the project and potential similar projects of their own. This new service offers an alternative to studios looking to claim back money lost of home purchases. Some studios such as Warner Bros are looking at the Screening Room high price of $50 whereas others, primarily Fox and Universal, feel that $50 is much too high and that a price around $30 is more

reasonable and realistic.

Most major Hollywood studios have been reported to be close to deals in this sector, however they all appear to be going down their own routes and few if any are even talking about Screening Room anymore. So it may not be the idea that follows through to the real product but it was indeed the spark that lit the fire that’s going to burn movie theatre’s to the ground.

As these services and many other threats grow ever closer to knocking cinemas off of their already very wobbly pedestal, in the next blog we’ll be looking at how cinemas are looking at diversifying and trying to create a unique experience to maintain business in an age that seems to be going online.