First-Run Movies at Home? Sure, For $20,000 [Movies]

Must watch Burlesque immediately, but aren’t inside the mood to trudge in your local cinemaplex? Never fear! You’ll soon have the ability to rent it from home the day it’s released for an insignificant $20,500. Wait, what?

That’s apparently Prima Cinema Inc.’s plan, a corporation that wishes to stream first-run movies to homes for $20,000 up front and $500 per movie thereafter. That is the sort of crazy monopoly money people spend on keeping exotic animals as pets, not on Orlando Bloom on their 42-inch LCD. Yet in step with the WSJ , the company plans to launch next year and be in 250,000 homes within five years.

I’ll go ahead and say that there’s no movie worth that much money, regardless of how wealthy you’re. I’d even say there are very few movies which might be so good it’s impossible to wait the two or three months before it comes out on DVD or is on the market on premium cable or on-demand. So what gives?

According to Prima president Jason Pang:

” We’re not here to interchange anything, ” says Mr. Pang, who was involved with other video technology companies before founding Prima. ” We try to create new revenue streams for residences and new viewing opportunities for moviegoers.”

Well, that’s not very helpful. But honestly, if even three people subscribe to these shenanigans, that’s decent money inside the bank without tweaking the studios’ movie chain partners. And hey, a top of the range digital copy available that early is excellent news for pirates! The sole injured party is rationality, but I suppose that’s been long dead regardless. [ Wall Street Journal ]

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This post is tagged: exotic animals, president jason, revenue streams, technology companies, video technology, wall street journal