Paramount Pictures just announced an unprecedented deal with AMC Entertainment and Cineplex, agreeing to make two upcoming horror films available to own digitally much sooner than previous releases.
The guinea pigs will be Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension and Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two films will be available to own digitally 17 days after they finish their theatrical runs. That’s a much shorter time period than the traditional three-month wait for consumers to see a movie at home.
“Exhibition for the first time was open minded about evolving our business instead of sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring what is happening around us,” Paramount vice chair Rob Moore told THR.
Why did Paramount have to make a deal with the theater chains in order to do this? If they didn’t, they could face the wrath of the chains, like Netflix has. AMC and Cineplex will actually receive a cut of the profits from digital sales of these two films in the first 90 days, notes The Wall Street Journal. Moore said that the deal will be offered to other chains, but they have only spoken with these two so far.
The next big question is, why these movies? Genre movies usually have much shorter theatrical life spans in theaters anyway and the audience takes a nosedive from weekend one to weekend two. By making this deal, Paramount can get the movies out on home video as soon as possible.
So don’t expect Paramount to do this with Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol or Star Trek Beyond right now. Big-budget movies like those usually stick in theaters much longer. But if this test is a massive success, then the future might come sooner rather than later.