Content is King?

[r.jones1116]

Quote:
Chris Frost on EngagetHD

According to IMDB these exclusive companies have the US distribution rights to the following number of movies:

Universal - 5331
Paramoun - 5753
Dreamworks - 95
Weinstein - 183

Total 11362 films

20th Century Fox - 755
SOny Pictures - 419
Disney Buena Vista - 727
MGM - 3639
Columbia/Tri Star - 4323
Warner Brothers - 4623

Total: 14783

Grand Total of all movies from these companies: 26145
11362/26145 = 43%

Meaning HD DVD has 43% of all catalog titles available for potential release on it's format. It's completely laughable to hear that BDA has 80% of the major studios. Who cares when Fox/Sony/Buena Vista/Disney all acount for less than 2000 movies. That's not even half of Universal's back catalog.

 

[Mdvalenz]

I was thinking this as well. Nice to see some numbers. Though Warner is on both sides till May so HD-DVD is actually at 15985 movies which puts it a little ahead till then. Now if they would just release more titles that would be great. I hate the one or two a month they are doing. At least they could focus on all AAA titles.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Dont put much stock into catalogs, they have not been selling well. Main reason new releases get first dibs.

Iron Man, Hulk and Hellboy will be big this year.

 

[charper1]

Today's Major film studios / and market share



EOY 2007 North America Market


A major film studio is a movie production and distribution company that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box-office revenues in a given market. In the North American, Western, and global markets, the major film studios, often simply known as the majors, are commonly regarded as the six diversified media conglomerates whose various movie production and distribution subsidiaries command approximately 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian box office. The term may also be applied more specifically to the primary movie business subsidiary of each respective conglomerate. The "Big Six" majors, whose movie operations are based in or around Hollywood, are all centered in film studios active during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s. In three cases—20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount—the studios were one of the "Big Five" majors during that era as well. In two cases—Columbia and Universal—the studios were also considered majors, but in the next tier down, part of the "Little Three." In the sixth case, Walt Disney Studios was an independent production company during the Golden Age; it was an important Hollywood entity, but not a major.

Most of today's Big Six also include formerly independent companies that have been acquired and brought in under the corporate umbrella—for instance, Time Warner's New Line Cinema. The majors have also established a variety of specialty divisions to concentrate on arthouse pictures (e.g., Paramount Vantage) or genre films (e.g., Fox Atomic). The six major movie studios are contrasted with smaller movie production and/or distribution companies, which are known as independents or "indies." The two largest independent producer/distributors—Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company—are sometimes referred to as "mini-majors." From 1998 through 2005, the independent DreamWorks SKG maintained a large enough market share to arguably qualify it as a seventh major, despite its relatively small output. In February 2006, DreamWorks was acquired by Viacom, Paramount's parent company. The major studios are today primarily backers and distributors of films whose actual production is largely handled by independent companies—either long-running entities or ones created for and dedicated to the making of a specific film. The specialty divisions often simply acquire distribution rights to pictures with which the studio has had no prior involvement. While the majors do a modicum of true production, their activities are focused more in the areas of development, financing, marketing, and merchandising.


"Mini-Major" film studios


2007 Yearly Box Office Results

 

[mike123abc]

Quote:
Chris Frost on EngagetHD

According to IMDB these exclusive companies have the US distribution rights to the following number of movies:

Universal - 5331
Paramoun - 5753
Dreamworks - 95
Weinstein - 183

Total 11362 films

20th Century Fox - 755
SOny Pictures - 419
Disney Buena Vista - 727
MGM - 3639
Columbia/Tri Star - 4323
Warner Brothers - 4623

Total: 14783

Grand Total of all movies from these companies: 26145
11362/26145 = 43%

Meaning HD DVD has 43% of all catalog titles available for potential release on it's format. It's completely laughable to hear that BDA has 80% of the major studios. Who cares when Fox/Sony/Buena Vista/Disney all acount for less than 2000 movies. That's not even half of Universal's back catalog.

Those numbers are wrong. Warner has the most titles, from warner's own web site:

The company’s vast library, considered one of the best and largest in the world, consists of more than 6,600 feature films, 48,000 television titles and 14,000 animated titles (including over 1,500 classic animated shorts).

Warner Bros. Company Info

The numbers for Fox and Disney look way short too.

 

[chicagofilms]

Obviously those numbers from the first post do not include TV, music titles, and things like that.

 

[allargon]

Obviously those numbers from the first post do not include TV, music titles, and things like that.

Music titles don't do any better than indy or catalog titles. TV shows are a different ballpark--especially with SD DVD. Some TV show sales do better than many movies.

Buy "Weeds: Season 3" or Blonde Ambition?

 

[ONUOsFan]

Those numbers are wrong. Warner has the most titles, from warner's own web site:



Warner Bros. Company Info

The numbers for Fox and Disney look way short too.

Not to mention that these numbers have been posted in this forum before...

:sleeo

 

[teamerickson]

Iron Man, Hulk and Hellboy will be big this year.

I think you overstimate the strength of these movies to the general public.

 

[ONUOsFan]

I think you overstimate the strength of these movies to the general public.

I agree, sort of.

I think Hulk will have a relatively large interest level.... and let's not forget that people buying HD movies at this point are not the "general public."

But, that being said, none of these is going to be another Transformers or POTC, or even anywhere close.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I think you overstimate the strength of these movies to the general public.

Yepp.

And since many movie aficionado's said Tranformers sucked, it did not sell well either?

If you go against the power of the big summer eye candy, you lose.

 

[allargon]

Warner and Universal have the biggest catalogs.

Honestly, classic movies don't mean squat. Warner, Sony and Universal found that out. Even Blu-Ray loving Sony hasn't released Lawrence of Arabia on Blu-Ray waiting for it to grow. (They may be waiting for profile 2.0, but I've never seen PiP or Internet features on a catalog title.)

Warner has catalogs for New Line and pre-1985 MGM along with their own 80 year history.

Anyone that thinks Iron Man and Dark Knight won't be huge is kidding themselves. Hell, even Veggie Tales will make money. I doubt if it will beat Dr. Horton Hears a Who? or whatever the eff it's called at the box office. However, it might be more profitable.

Some things do better on video. That steaming POS that is Fox' Hitman will be huge on Blu-Ray. It plays to the PS3 gamer demographic as well as the Blu-Ray enthusiast that tends to like loud action movies more so than the average DVD buyer.

Content is definitely king. Paramount would be HD DVD's saving grace if they would get off their asses and put stuff out. Paramount is the #1 studio in terms of ticket sales. However, their support of HD DVD is lackluster. Maybe they think they're still supporting DivX or something. Universal has been great with dramas, comedies and horrible edge-enhanced transfers. Oh well... It disturbs me when porn companies put out better transfers (e.g. Babysitters) than a lot of the stuff released by Universal and Warner.

 

[mike123abc]

Quote:
Chris Frost on EngagetHD

According to IMDB these exclusive companies have the US distribution rights to the following number of movies:

Universal - 5331
Paramoun - 5753
Dreamworks - 95
Weinstein - 183

Total 11362 films

20th Century Fox - 755
SOny Pictures - 419
Disney Buena Vista - 727
MGM - 3639
Columbia/Tri Star - 4323
Warner Brothers - 4623

Total: 14783

Grand Total of all movies from these companies: 26145
11362/26145 = 43%

Meaning HD DVD has 43% of all catalog titles available for potential release on it's format. It's completely laughable to hear that BDA has 80% of the major studios. Who cares when Fox/Sony/Buena Vista/Disney all acount for less than 2000 movies. That's not even half of Universal's back catalog.

Ok, I was wondering why this wrong data could be put out by Engadget, and then I went and looked. "Chris Frost" IS JUST A PERSON WHO COMMENTED ON AN ARTICLE. It would be like taking a quote from verbano and posting it on here as a real press article. This is a complete fabrication of news. Here look at Universal exec says studio and HD DVD are moving forward - Engadget HD

The "news" is a comment on the article.

Now we are so desparate we are posting reader comments on a news story as facts?!? This thread starter is based on a reader comment on a news story.

 

[Peter Parker]

All that matters is that it supports your point of view. no one checks to see if the "facts" are real or if the source is credible.

 

[r.jones1116]

Ok, I was wondering why this wrong data could be put out by Engadget, and then I went and looked. "Chris Frost" IS JUST A PERSON WHO COMMENTED ON AN ARTICLE. It would be like taking a quote from verbano and posting it on here as a real press article. This is a complete fabrication of news. Here look at Universal exec says studio and HD DVD are moving forward - Engadget HD

The "news" is a comment on the article.

Now we are so desparate we are posting reader comments on a news story as facts?!? This thread starter is based on a reader comment on a news story.

The information is from IMDb. Do you know a better source for gathering these numbers?

P.S. Learn to use your spell check before you post in bold. It really makes your mistakes stand out.

 

[mike123abc]

The information is from IMDb. Do you know a better source for gathering these numbers?

P.S. Learn to use your spell check before you post in bold. It really makes your mistakes stand out.

Spelling mistakes aside, how about posting links to your numbers? IMDB is not an accurate site. You did not even post IMDB numbers or links to them. You posted information from a reader comment on another site and that reader said they got the numbers from IMDB. IMDB is written and updated by a collection of people and fans. The information has a lot of mistakes in it as pointed out already by Warner's own web site. Your first post is worded to look it it came from Engadget itself:

Quote:
Chris Frost on EngagetHD

Implies that it was an article written by Chris Frost on EngadgetHD. Which by the way speaking of spelling, you misspelled the web site (as quoted from above) it is Engadget HD

 

[vurbano]

Those numbers are wrong. Warner has the most titles, from warner's own web site:



Warner Bros. Company Info

The numbers for Fox and Disney look way short too.

Oh yeah lets use data from Warner's own propoganda web site....

 

[vurbano]

Quote:
Chris Frost on EngagetHD

According to IMDB these exclusive companies have the US distribution rights to the following number of movies:

Universal - 5331
Paramoun - 5753
Dreamworks - 95
Weinstein - 183

Total 11362 films

20th Century Fox - 755
SOny Pictures - 419
Disney Buena Vista - 727
MGM - 3639
Columbia/Tri Star - 4323
Warner Brothers - 4623

Total: 14783

Grand Total of all movies from these companies: 26145
11362/26145 = 43%

Meaning HD DVD has 43% of all catalog titles available for potential release on it's format. It's completely laughable to hear that BDA has 80% of the major studios. Who cares when Fox/Sony/Buena Vista/Disney all acount for less than 2000 movies. That's not even half of Universal's back catalog.

Great post.

 

[tnsprin]

Great post

Have you tried to come up with the numbers from IMDB? I have and cannot come close with numbers even resembling the ones quoted.

The closest numbers I got included all TV shows and movies from 1920 on.

 

[r.jones1116]

Have you tried to come up with the numbers from IMDB? I have and cannot come close with numbers even resembling the ones quoted.

The closest numbers I got included all TV shows and movies from 1920 on.

On IMDb website, from the search dropdown menu choose company, and then next to it type the movie studio. It's really not that complicated. To get you started, I found the first three for you.

Universal Pictures [us]

Paramount Pictures [us]

DreamWorks SKG [us]