Straight to DVD films

You could be forgiven for assuming that any film that comes straight to DVD is generally bad. If it was not shown at the cinema and did not get a major release there could be a very good reason for it but to be fair not all films can make it to the cinema all over the world. The majority of the films I own on DVD I do not remember seeing advertised at the cinema let alone seeing them there but to me that doesn't matter, I may have found them by accident but they led onto greater things.

What is your take on direct to DVD though? When I think of them I generally think of films out of The Asylum. I am unsure of what it is that needs to happen for a DTDVD, for example, if a film is shown at only indie cinemas and then comes out on DVD would you call that a straight to DVD? Is there even anything wrong with the system of this? Would piracy be cut down if DVD and Netflix releases were the same time as planned at a cinema?

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Releasing DVDs at the same time as Cinema is a no-no... studios would never go for that.
As far as I'm aware it's only happened once, Cinema, Home Cinema, Online and Free TV all at the same time with A Field In England and it was a phenomenal flop. Cost £300k to make and only made £60k... £240,000 loss.


As far as straight to Home Cinema... I've tried numerous films, TV Movies are in the same vein really... watched tons of them and I can't really recall from the top of my head a single one that was actually any good.


If you're after low (ish) budget stuff, Independent films are the way to go with stuff like Dredd, Clerks, Texas Chainsaw, Reservoir Dogs, 127 Hours, 500 Days Of Summer, Moon... rather than the lower than low end stuff like the straight to DVD and TV Movie stuff.

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I have still not seen "A Field in England", to be fair the main reason I wanted to see it was a film critic I love recommended it (not the best way to only see a film really). I do understand what you mean. I do not know this for sure but I am sure Heartless followed the same thing and whilst it was (in my opinion) a good film it failed, BADLY, according to IMDB:

Budget
$5,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend
$2,033 (USA) (21 November 2010) (1 Screen)

Gross
$2,033 (USA) (21 November 2010)
£1,309 (UK) (23 May 2010)

Now if this was a result of a direct to DVD release but ouch, this is the worst I have personally ever seen.

Many classics have been released direct to video.

Some of them even get a limited release in cinemas like a year after being released on DVD.

Straight to DVD movies to me are perfect, especially when it comes to the action genre as I'm an old school action fan, for real action films, straight to DVD is the number one option. I'm sure any old school action fan knows what I'm talking about.

In general I think artistically there is no big difference betweed dvd and cinema films, sometimes dvds are even better and more original, so to me I'd say both are equal

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Such as?

anime

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Mubi

But how can an anime film be a "classic"?

You've never seen all those straight to DVD Anime Classics?


Millions of them.

Well, a movie can have two different genres, action-thriler, action-romance, western-porno, so naturally we can have a genre combo of classic-anime.

How's the 60k made up? I can't believe that includes the fee filmfour paid to screen it.

Whatever the case, it won't be long before this is the way films are released, across as many mediums as possible to maximise revenue. As streaming becomes easier and more 'normal' so it'll dominate the market, in the same way that downloading songs did.

In the end, I suspect that cinema will be where older people, cinephiles and teenages go. That, or it'll start to have a status. A special day out which will cost you a pretty penny.

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Ive picked up some dvds in the past that have been great and straight to dvd.

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

There are plenty of good movies that were made-for-TV or went straight to home video.

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