Thursday, December 13, 2007

Don't go to the theater for this one...

The newest installment of the Jackass series is premiering online. Starting on December 19th, for one week only, Jackass 2.5 will be streaming for free through Blockbuster's newly acquired Movielink. Reports suggest that this online release, the first studio film to be released online, will be an experiment to see how successful an online debut can be.

Now...maybe I've been in the dark for a while, but I check out the news online atleast a couple of times a day, and "Jackass" would definitely catch my eye, just as it did today. My point is that this release is less than a week away...didn't they think to promote this ahead of time? Now, I know traditional movie theaters are not going anywhere for a while...some movies just require the big screen and THX sound. However, this could have potential to catch on for certain types of movies...and I'm just hearing about it the week before? Don't get me wrong...I'm definitely going to watch the free stream...but not all consumers work like me (like a genius, that is).

Maybe this process is for good reason (and by reason, I mean revenue). Again, the free stream will only be for one week. Starting December 26th, the free stream will end, and it will be available to download for a price on iTunes and Amazon.com. A DVD will also be on sale, with 45 minutes of extras (always gotta get you with the extras!) for a higher price. So the lacking promotion for this new concept is probably to reduce the amount of people who get a free watch...well you can't fool me Paramount!

So if you're looking for what's destined to be the feel-good holiday hit of the season, curl up by the fire with your laptop and some hot cocoa and watch someone tee off at the driving range off of Bam Margera's crotch!



3 comments:

Mike said...

There was actually a good article about this today on Techdirt:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20071213/124346.shtml

BTW, it will be available for free again on Joost in January.

Kevin said...

Yea you're right Mike...I thought when I first read it, it said that it would only provide free clips on Joost come January (probably because that would of made more sense as I read it)...but I guess they are offering the whole movie in addition to clips...weird how they're doing all of this

Mike said...

Yea, they really have no idea what they're doing.

Universal should have listened to us 2 years ago when we had MusicVideoCodes and they wanted to kill us with licensing. We laid out exactly what they needed to do back then, but... hey, lawyers like to litigate, not innovate.

The good news is that they're starting to get it right now. NBC actually has taken a step in the right direction with Hulu. HD Flash is pretty sweet.