Drew Turney
A recent Hollywood Reporter story shone a light on an interesting new wrinkle in the VOD world. In traditional media balance sheets, the way to discern what a show is worth calculated on how many people are watching, which then tells you everything from the amount you charge advertisers to how much to dangle in front of A list talent to star.
The number of people who tune in are the bottom line metric that’s determined everything in entertainment throughout the media age, and such results have always been more or less publicly available.
By contrast, Netflix is famously tight lipped about how many people watch on its network. It’s revealed how many subscribers it has, but the fact is that – out of the tens of squillions of paying members – nobody else knows how many people stream each TV show or movie.
So even though we think of “Orange Is the New Black” or “House of Cards” as big hits for the service, we really have no idea how big they are. And neither do the actors, their agents or any co-producers who might share their costs.
The Hollywood Reporter has more (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-is-netflix-show-worth-699297), but it’s interesting to wonder about how it’s going to change things. Might the online streaming services eventually be forced to make viewer numbers public (at least to partners and collaborators), or might some other yardstick of success emerge in the VOD age?
Out now; quintessential LA noir author Elmore Leonard’s work comes to VOD in “Life of Crime” (https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/life-of-crime/id891239225?uo=4&at=10lorC), featuring Jennifer Aniston as a woman kidnapped by two hoods (including John Hawkes) to extort money out of her corrupt real estate agent husband Tim Robbins. Things go awry when the scheming husband decides he’d rather not pay to get her back.
Robin Wright plays not only herself but as you’ve never seen her before – animated! It’s a tale of Hollywood and the future as Waltz With Bashir director Ari Folman brings us “The Congress” (https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-congress/id876697252?uo=4&at=10lorC)
Finally the loving, lyrical and highly anticipated documentary on the life of Roger Ebert, Life Itself (https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/life-itself/id889470787?uo=4&at=10lorC) is even more haunting given it was filmed right up until the legendary critic’s 2013 death – and included correspondence between Ebert and filmmaker Steve James as the former faded away in his final hours.
