By TIM WATKIN
Those browsing the new-release shelves in the Video Ezy on Ponsonby Rd this weekend will see a display on the wall: the Galaxy Quest video is coming soon. On the other side of the display, five copies of the same movie are lined up. Five copies of ... DVDs.
These sneaky silver spinners, getting onto the shelves before their video counterparts, are causing quite a fuss. Why? The problem is a combination of the openness of the global marketplace, the internet, and the fact that movies and videos are usually released in New Zealand months after their United States premieres.
It all means that parallel importers here can bring DVDs (digital versatile discs) into the country and onto the shelves ahead of their video cousins and, in some cases, even before the film has been released in cinemas. And you and I can buy the same DVDs from overseas websites.
The Government is looking at laws to restrict such importing and wrestling with the high-tech, new economy realities of international trade and the internet.
The video and movie distributors, in the meantime, are in a flap. There have been dire warnings from Video Association executive secretary Bill Hood of video rental shops and even theatres having to "shrink" as DVDs, with their superior sound and picture quality, capture the market. Hoyts operations manager Craig Rawlings said in June: "You've got to stop these things before they get too prolific."
But just how prolific are they at the moment? Bob Smith, owner of Video Ezy in Ponsonby, one of the country's biggest DVD renters, says the discs make up 8 per cent of turnover. In August that meant 2481 rentals.
What can we consumers get our hands on? A look on the shelves and websites suggests the distributors really don't have that much to worry about. There are two films in the shops that haven't made it to the cinemas here yet: Reindeer Games, starring Ben Affleck, and Supernova, starring James Spader. There are a handful of new releases still doing the big-screen rounds, such as Magnolia, The Dinner Game, Topsy Turvy and Mansfield Park, but most of the DVD new releases, such as Erin Brockovich, Romeo Must Die and The Talented Mr Ripley, are safely out of the theatres.
On the Borders website, American Psycho could be bought on the day it opened in cinemas, but the most popular buys from Flying Pig were The Cider House Rules and The Talented Mr Ripley, which are also out on video. The big DVD release in the United States this week: a limited edition version of Men in Black. The most promoted releases are The Patriot and Mission Impossible: 2, but not until late October and early November, respectively.
It's hardly a flood of usurping films and the end of the movie distribution business as we know it.
Ask Warren Prouse, owner of The DVD Shop and an importer for two and a half years, how many times DVDs have got films out before the cinemas and he replies, "About a dozen." Oh, is that all? Even then, Prouse adds, the market for pre-theatre films is limited because, without the distributors' promotional push and accompanying media coverage and reviews, most people haven't heard of the films on offer.
Smith says the video distributors are fretting that shops will stop ordering videos if DVD sales take off. If anyone would be considering that, it would be Smith, as a leading DVD renter, but he says, "It's certainly not happening with me."
DVDs would have to be approaching a quarter of his turnover before he even started thinking of cutting back video orders. And that's a long way off.
"I can't see a crisis coming," he says.
To stave one off, somewhere down the track, he proffers a simple solution.
"If they [the movie distributors] got their act together and got their movies on screen at the same time as America, they wouldn't have a problem at all."
Perhaps the video and movie distributors should relax and refrain from panicking just yet. You know, get out of the office, maybe go to a film or hire a video. Or, hey, they could rent a DVD.
Distributors in a spin over the arrival of DVDs
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