For those of you wonder where John Carter is on Redbox, you may be shocked to find out the the company who made the film, Disney, has gone the way of Universal and Fox to wait 28 days after the film is released on DVD to make wholesale copies available to Redbox. Universal and Fox (and now, Disney) have disagreed with studios like Paramount and Lionsgate, who release their titles for Redbox at the same time as the DVD.
Some think that renting the movie cheaply with inspire those that liked the film to make the DVD purchase. Universal and Fox think that the cheap alternative is ruining DVD sales. Warner Bros. is another that falls into this camp, saying that they will extend the delay period to 56 days before offering wholesale terms to rental companies.
As far as Disney goes, they have not made any announcement as to whether or not they will adopt the 28 day delay. But Redbox lovers will notice a distinct lack of John Carter on the new releases page. According to Redbox via Deadline Hollywood, “Redbox has always worked with Disney on a per title basis, without a contract. We will be sourcing John Carter through alternative means.” “Alternative means” indicates that they just buy the DVD from retailers to offer at their kiosks.
Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Disney CEO Bob Igor said to analyst in February that they are in discussions to go with the 28 day window before offering Redbox cheaper terms. It is apparent that they have since adopted that strategy and Redbox will now be forced to pay full purchase price for all of Disney’s Films. Igor added that it would be wise for them to protect DVD sales as much as they can. The market has been in steady decline recently.
Redbox is planning to have the DVD in kiosks next Tuesday. They have not said why they had the delay, knowing that they would have had to pay full price for the release anyway.
Do they not realize they are also competing with pirates? It seems to me that most people only splurge on a DVD if they think the movie is really good. Hollywood now produces more movies a year than anytime in history. If everyone shelled out $20+ every time a new movie was released, we would all be broke. It may also lead to Redbox raising prices on new releases. Also not a good thing.
