“The interview”: Sony’s missed opportunity.
The US-only VOD release of “The interview” is the epitome of what’s wrong with the way Hollywood majors release their films to their audience around the globe.
Everyone’s talking about “The interview” starring James Franco and Seth Rogen right now, because of the SonyHack that I won’t go into. Let me just remind you that Sony’s been hacked and that it decided afterwards not to release the film in the light of vague terrorists threats - a decision that has been rippling through the different layers of the US society up to President Obama taking a stance on that non-release. In the end, Sony did release “The interview” in some theatres and on VOD on December 25th, 2014. In the US only.
Sony jumping from one bad idea to another.
What a terrible year Sony’s had in 2014. So terrible it is pretty easy to smack them on their heads for bad business decisions since each and every one of them has been bad this year (remember the infamous Aunt May “Spiderman” spin off film ? Brrr). However, I think the US-only release of “The interview” tops it all since it has managed to turn a film with a global buzz into one mess of a frustrating release.
There is one undeniable truth when it comes to distributing films: “If a film is released on VOD, it will be available one hour later on torrent sites and on illegal streaming.” I know this truth and I hope US people in the movie biz know it too. French distributors are very aware of that when they are releasing US films in France because it really is a race against the clock. When a film appears online, its run in theatres all around the globe are in jeopardy if it’s not done quickly.
As far as “The interview” goes, Sony has effectively killed the film’s distribution for its global subsidiaries everywhere in the world when they decided to release it online on December 25th - one hell of a Christmas gift. Since then, “The interview” has been topping the charts on every torrents site and the word of mouth is not very good too, which will make it very hard for Sony France to promote the film when they release it next April (Yes, April, welcome to French distribution). Medias over here are even talking about the film as if it was released online for French people too, making headlines about advising people or not to see it.
The US-only release is frustrating for everyone around the world dying to see it in the light of the thunderous buzz that has been going on for several weeks now. I’m fairly sure that the people torrenting it are from countries where the film has not been released (ie pretty much every country but the US).
What should Sony have done then? They should have done what any indie filmmaker would have done (better) with that kind of pre-release buzz: a worldwide VOD release on as many different platforms as you can. It is as simple as that. People from around the world are looking forward to see the film because of the buzz? Just give it to them. It ain’t rocket science really. This would have been a first for a major Hollywood company and it would have at least given the opportunity to people to pay for it, rather than being “forced” to pirate it.
What I will remember about this whole thing is this: US major film companies don’t know a damn about releasing their films worldwide. They’re probably good within their own comfort zones (the US territory) but outside that, they are pretty bad. Any indie filmmaker could teach them loads about how to engage with their audience early on, about how to use the Internet to sell a film, which platform to use and why, why make it available worldwide and so on. I’m pretty sure that “Expelled”, an indie film released worldwide at the beginning of December will be a bigger VOD success than “The interview”. (Edit : Well, since it’s made 15M$ on its first week-end, I’m guessing I was wrong on that part. ☺) And it should, they’ve done things right. Sony had the perfect film to try new distribution techniques and they messed it up.
One little glimmer of hope, still.
It’s in the darkest place that the faintest ray of light shines the brightest and in that case, that ray of light comes from the dedicated website set up by Sony for people to rent the film directly from them, through Kernel of which I knew nothing about.
This is interesting because it shows that Sony is looking at direct distribution without costly intermediaries such as iTunes, Google Play and so forth. A way to test that way of distributing films before a wider use? Maybe, but for poor Sony, even that might become a bit of a problem in the light of SonyHack.
Poor Sony indeed.
I’m in charge of FilmsdeLover.com, a French website dedicated to romance films and Direct-To-VOD, a Tumblr dedicated to films that are released directly on VOD.
Contact : frederic[at]filmsdelover.com
