Would you pre­fer to watch a movie at home the day of its release?

Will reg­u­lar cin­e­ma goers pay five times the cost of a tick­et to see a movie at home the day of its the­atri­cal release? Not accord­ing to Peter Jack­son, but oth­ers might. That’s why he and sev­er­al oth­er renowned direc­tors – includ­ing Steven Spiel­berg and JJ Abrams – are back­ing a new pre­mi­um VOD plat­form called the Screen­ing Room.

Last week, Vari­ety report­ed that Nap­ster cofounder and Face­book share­hold­er Sean Park­er was nego­ti­at­ing with stu­dios and exhibitors to launch the Screen­ing Room, where sub­scribers would have to pay $150 for a set-top box that would allow them to stream, from the com­fort of their own home, one movie on its day of release (which would be avail­able to view for a 48-hour peri­od) for anoth­er $50.

What’s the appeal of being able to see a movie the sec­ond it hits cin­e­mas? Well, for starters it elim­i­nates the frus­tra­tion of dis­cov­er­ing that a new release you’ve wait­ed months to see is ful­ly booked, and it means no more queu­ing to buy a tick­et and over-priced snacks. For fans the temp­ta­tion to down­load poor-qual­i­ty ille­gal record­ings is greater than ever, and even if you’re a com­mit­ted cin­ema­go­er, there’s noth­ing to stop some­one com­ing out of the pre­vi­ous screen­ing and spoil­ing the film for you. These are gen­uine con­cerns that the Screen Room will seek to resolve.

It’s no coin­ci­dence that some of the most vocal sup­port­ers of the Screen­ing Room so far have been high-pro­file direc­tors who make the kinds of movies that are most sus­cep­ti­ble to boot­leg­gers. Yet the project has not been met with unan­i­mous approval from the indus­try – for Christo­pher Nolan and James Cameron the best way to dis­cov­er a movie is still inti­mate­ly linked to the in-the­atre expe­ri­ence. This new breed of VOD plat­form may seem like a threat to movie the­atre atten­dance fig­ures, but you could argue that the impact will be less sig­nif­i­cant than some are sug­gest­ing. As the old adage says, some films are worth see­ing on the big screen. 

Let’s say you own a decent home cin­e­ma sys­tem. You have 48 hours to gath­er your friends so you can spread the cost between you. You recre­ate a kind of cin­e­ma expe­ri­ence, except that here, you’re in con­trol of the pro­jec­tor. Out of the $50 you paid, $20 goes to the exhibitor you have shunned, while the dis­trib­u­tor also gets a fair share of the pie. And if you want to repeat the expe­ri­ence, you sim­ply fork out anoth­er $50. The Screen­ing Room’s goal is not to take audi­ences away from the­atres but to draw an entire­ly new one – par­ents who don’t have time to organ­ise a night out, younger view­ers who aren’t yet able to attend movies unac­com­pa­nied. But, set­ting aside the obvi­ous lim­i­ta­tions (pric­ing, a lim­it­ed view­ing win­dow), what’s inter­est­ing is the way the Screen­ing Room seems to be chal­leng­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of on-demand. 

So what about small­er movies, the ones you don’t have to buy your tick­ets for weeks in advance? If this new way of launch­ing movies becomes more demo­c­ra­t­ic, major dis­trib­u­tors might be tempt­ed to put the ones fore­cast­ed to be the most prof­itable in the­atres, paving the way for more VOD ser­vices. Adverse­ly, if major dis­trib­u­tors found they stood to make their mon­ey back quick­er by giv­ing cer­tain VOD plat­forms exclu­siv­i­ty, it could free up more screens for small­er inde­pen­dent releas­es oth­er­wise restrict­ed to key cities. And if more inde­pen­dent films are released across var­i­ous VOD plat­forms, then they may ulti­mate­ly reach a wider audience.

At a time where peo­ple are just as like­ly to watch a movie on a mobile device than in the cin­e­ma, dis­trib­u­tors are get­ting wise to the oppor­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed by VOD plat­forms. The more they buy into this mod­el, the more diverse the selec­tion of films avail­able in both cin­e­mas and online will become. The real dilem­ma will arise when it’s up to the audi­ence to decide which films deserve to be seen on the big screen. The future of film exhi­bi­tion may yet depend on people’s tastes, the price they are will­ing to pay and the size of their per­son­al home-theatre.