Part 3 of How to Make Money in the Age of Abundance
By Jon Reiss
Theatrical is Dead Long Live Theatrical. The holy grail of a theatrical release still rings as a delusion for many. Fighting words still for untold thousands of filmmakers. Who doesn’t want their name in lights – long lines around the block – a packed theater of adoring fans. I believe this live engagement with fans is crucial for artists. But traditional theatrical is probably not the way you are going to do it.
In the first post in this series, I indicated that filmmakers need to create scarce resources in order to compete with the abundance of digital. Today’s post will focus on events – or what I have termed Live Event/Theatrical. The essence of this renaming is for filmmakers to reformulate and to reclaim what the industry calls theatrical – for more on that see Think Outside the Box Office. (PS – I first said this was a two part series – then I said three parts – well I lied again and now it will be four parts – with Part 4 tomorrow).
When films were only available in a movie theater – that was a scarce resource that could be charged for – it was the only way to see films.
