Basic Instinct 2: A Review

Not of the movie, of course. I haven’t seen it and indeed, my wife and I haven’t been to an adult film—I don’t mean porn (though BI2 may qualify), I just mean a movie that you go to without your kids—in a theater in years.

Instead, I want to focus on the interaction between the MPAA’s content ratings system and versioning—multiple versions of the same content—and windows—the time periods between releases of versions.

As every movie watcher knows, the Motion Picture Association of America has a trademarked rating system for movies: G; PG; PG-13; R; and NC-17. The trademarks are important. The NC-17 rating—for films that “most parents will consider patently too adult for their youngsters under 17”—replaced the X rating. The MPAA didn’t trademark the X and the porn industry glommed on to it with glee (XXX must be three times as good as X).

The ratings system is a simple way of conveying information about films, but the lumpiness of the ratings system has real consequences. These show up at the edges, where the difference between NC-17 and R and between R and PG-13 is substantial.

Some theaters will not show NC-17 films and those films have been harder to advertise. Box-office revenues tended to be lower on R rated films than on PG-13, so movie deals often require the delivery of a film that will receive a particular rating.

The original cut of BI2 would have received an NC-17 and to the dismay of Sharon Stone—her ice pick has been curiously silent on the ratings question—director Michael Caton-Jones edited the film to get an R rating.

But now we get to versioning, windows and a little bit of backwards induction. As to versioning, you can be sure that an unedited version will make it to the DVD. Indeed, just as a studio can issue full-screen and wide-screen DVD versions—I have yet to convince my five-year old daughter as to why full-screen versions are completely unacceptable—it can issue separate versions of BI2. Wal-Mart will want no more than the R-rated version, but many distributors will be happy to provide the unedited (and unrated) version of BI2.

But now windows and backwards induction. If there was ever a movie that screamed DVD, BI2 is it. The early reviews are quite bad. You really don’t want to waste a ton of money on a bad movie, plus this is a movie that you want to see only once. If you are going to see it once, do you want to see the edited version or the unedited version? Sharon Stone in various stages of undress is presumably the core attraction of the movie and that means the unedited version. Plus this is a movie that you will want to have the option to fast forward.

All of that means DVD and that suggests that the window between the theatrical release and the DVD release should collapse. Technology is generally making it harder to sustain content restrictions, be those restrictions over time or over geography. Consumer knowledge of content practices matters too, as consumers know that they can wait for the DVD. That is especially the case when the rating systems means that the movie that you want to see—if you are going to see it at all—won’t ever be in the theaters but instead will just show up on the soon-to-be-arriving DVD.

Comments

[Michael Risch]

There's one interesting point to add to this, and that's the information value related to a theatrical v. DVD release. Movies released directly to DVD signal lower quality, and thus may lead to lower DVD sales. (See, e.g., any Disney movie sequel sent directly to video).

Thus, the studios must make the edited version simply to let the audience know that there is a high quality (technically, at least, not necessarily plot-wise) movie out there that you will want to get in uncut version on DVD in the near future (which was your point).

[Randy Picker]

Yes, both as signaling and advertising. I assume, both don't know for sure, that there are many more reviews of theatrical releases than of movies sent directly to DVDs. Both the NYT and WSJ had reviews this morning of BI2. So that creates additional awareness, both directly and as signal, as well.

[Keith Demko]

Interesting analysis .. PG-13 is the biggest con ever admitted by the MPAA ... It means you can make the most vulgar trash without too much skin and make it available to kids ... ridiculous

[The Law Fairy]

Maybe, Keith, but it's the parents who need to be more careful -- the only "kids" we'd be talking about would be teens with independent means of getting around. And without PG-13, lots of the movies would be rated PG (like the original Indiana Jones movie) -- giving the "kids" even less reason to avoid the show.

[Cory Hojka]

Recently, Steven Soderbergh released a film 'Bubble' that was shown in theaters and cable at the same time. In addition, the DVD release followed only a few days later. It seems that at least for low budget indie films that he and Mark Cuban thinks this 'day-and-date' model works better than traditional windowing.

Soderbergh's 'Bubble' Changes the Rules:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5167394

IFC, Comcast starts day-and-date distribution service:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060301-6294.html

[Bruce]

"Movies released directly to DVD signal lower quality, and thus may lead to lower DVD sales." That plus the enormous revenue reaped from DVD sales have led to the rueful joke that the theatrical release is now just an ad for the DVD.

That signalling function may be broken, however, by high-definition DVDs (and since everything in this area must be confusing, high-def DVDs are of course not necessarily HD DVDs). We may see a collapsing of the early window for some films, but possibly only for more expensive HD content, or perhaps only copy-never VOD or PPV releases. In cases like BI2, that would allow the studio to make that many more sales before the negative reviews and word-of-mouth gets out, a phenomenon that has already led to the massive push to get as many theater-goers as possible in on opening weekend. Although it would only work if the release would not result in that much cannibalization of the theatrical revenue, which would be the case with your "people are only going to see it once" scenario.

On the flip side, if you have a film that you expect to be a slow burn rather than a massive rush on opening day, you might want to go with early window releases because you want to reach people in towns without arts theaters before the ad buzz fades, or even towns with arts theaters because you think it will only be up on screens for a couple of weeks.

[Randy Picker]

As the WSJ reported this morning (p. B3), Sharon Stone lost the ice battle over the weekend, indeed, lost big, big, big.

BI2 finished 10th in the weekend box office (Fri, Sat and Sun), taking in only $3.2 million in its opening weekend. Bad numbers, and, I suspect, confirmation that most of us will wait for the DVD.

And the ice battle, of ice pick vs. ice age? Ice Age: The Meltdown, the sequel to the original kid's animated movie, had a stunning $70.5 million opening weekend. That roughly matches the opening weekend for The Incredibles in 2004.