This may seem like a silly question but it was a thought I had on my mind recently. With Netflix and Hulu becoming increasing popular and Amazon offering ways to rent movies for 24 hour periods, do you see a possibility of a studio allowing customers to stream new release movies online? For example, if you prefer not to go to the movie theatre but watch the movie online, would you take this opportunity? I'm talking about smaller movies because there is no way in the world a big budget blockbuster film would take this chance. Then there is the possibility of movie theatres losing profit if such an occurrence were to happen. Let me know what you guys think about the option of viewing new release films online.
It would be nice to be able to see the new releases at home as soon as they come out. I don't the big boys would lose too much money because going to the movies is a social activity, people like to get out of the house and meet up with each other for fun.
I don't think that's ever going to become a thing. The film companies would lose so much in ticket sales if people didn't have to go to the cinema and watch it.
I don't think this will ever happen unless cinemas see a dramatic enough decrease in popularity. Offering new movies for home viewing at release might just be a bit too risky in that it makes it very easy to pirate and share very early on, whereas if it is only shown in cinemas for the first few weeks then the illegal content market wouldn't have a clear copy until it is released for home video, which then gives people incentive to watch at cinemas. I think that if ever this were to happen, it will probably necessitate a perfect storm of home theater standards increasing to the point of being almost completely like theaters and also as I've said, a significant decrease in cinema viewing popularity.
