Nick Schmeichel

Imagine having the decision on whether to go to the movie theater or rent a movie when it’s first available. The movie “Bubble” was released in theaters on Jan. 27, but it wasn’t just released for theater-goers. “Bubble” was also available on DVD and to rent on cable on the same night it opened in theaters. The movie is directed by Steven Soderbergh, credited with “Ocean’s Twelve,” but is not quite the box office smash.

This interesting concept is not going over well with theaters and the production studios. They think that the idea of giving people this option will bankrupt the movie industry, bringing down the multimillion dollar movie operators.

According to msnbc.com, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner are the masterminds behind this concept. After selling their company, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo.com for $5.7 billion, they purchased a theater chain, two cable channels and a home video label just to get their experiment under way.

The movie industry is a very complex system right now. A movie comes out in theaters before any other outlet. After the movie has made its peak money, it comes out on DVD. Around the same time, the movie is released on pay-per-view channels. After the movie has been removed from pay-per-view channels, it is sold to movie channels like Showtime. Years after a movie’s theater debut, it will be on free television.

The system now makes a person pay at least twice to see the same movie more than once. A viewer will go to a movie in theaters, spending around $8 per view. Then, if the viewer enjoys the movie and wants to own it, the viewer will purchase the movie on DVD. This makes customers pay the movie industry twice and makes the movie industry thrive.

Darrin Eichacker, a junior manufacturing engineering technology major, agrees with the movie production companies. He said, “I think the movie industry will lose an abundance of money and it would ruin the movie atmosphere.”

Some SDSU students are unbiased to this new concept. Lee Gelderman, a sophomore construction management major, said, “My decision to go to a movie in theaters is based upon my mood rather than the availability.”

Whatever the fate may be of this new concept, it has certainly left its mark on the movie industry. This marks another new advancement in the way media is viewed by recipients.