Tom Jolliffe on the latest nails in the coffin for physical media…
2020 begins. The movie going landscape sees a theatrical distribution model propped up by Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Meanwhile, streaming services are on the up with Disney+ on the way and a host of other streamers vying to move into original content to swing with Netflix and Amazon. Then there’s physical media. DVDs and Blu-rays have taken a beating for a number of years with the rise of high speed broadband and beefy streamers with masses of content. We’ve long lost Blockbuster Video and the like, whilst only a rise in collectable content and curated selection labels like Arrow and Criterion, keep a passionate collectors market interested in physical media. Additionally, high street retail are already been on a hiding to nothing. Amazon et al have made the convenience of home shopping and one day delivery far more appealing than physically walking to a shop to buy your entertainment items (at a premium to boot).
In 2020 I personally had two DVD releases for films in the UK in Return of the Tooth Fairy and Witches of Amityville. This was an exciting time for a screenwriter who used to daydream in video stores about his name being on one of those VHS covers. Swap out VHS for DVD and I’d made it. Then there was something else happening in 2020… teah, you know…that pandemic that still blights the entire world. With lockdowns across the world, the high street was given a further kicking. Retail stores were battered in a way not unlike Vinnie Jones pummelling Frank Harper’s skull in with a car door in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The problem is, they were shut, we couldn’t go out, and thus Amazon delivered our goods and made huge profits. Streaming services were put through their bandwidth paces by people working at home in their underwear, procrastinating on Netflix et. al. If the film-watching public was already well on the way to being dominated by online streaming, being stuck at home only compounded the issue and accelerated the process. Cinemas are at least showing burgeoning signs of recovery (again, dragged slightly by Disney/Marvel).
There’s a big problem for physical media though. Though supermarkets remained open and kept a place openly available to buy some DVD’s, it was only briefly reflected in sales. People not quite ready to make that streaming move (or indeed suffering from the increase in users slowing everyone’s service) were making lockdown diversions to pick up the Bruce Willis film of the week (maybe… maybe not Bruce). In time since, there’s been something of a reality check though, certainly in the UK. As a physical media fan (not to obsessive levels), my offline available options lie in the second hand market, supermarkets and the ever decreasing specialists like HMV who cling onto staying open. Even HMV has toyed with oblivion for a number of years, rescued a few years back, but still perennially lacking in customers (at least whenever I go in). Like every high street store, profits (or more pertinently, losses) are hugely skewed by the pandemic era. Judging just how much the customer demand has dropped for a store is difficult. What is clearer is those stores/sectors which have boomed in the pandemic era, and probably will continue to maintain a rise in consumers – takeaways for example, which play into home convenience.
I can almost see the effects, certainly in the UK, by my own film career (such as it is). Whereas DVD releases for the horror films used to be a given, they now seem to be deemed unnecessary. Pissing in the wind. I’ve not had a UK DVD release since 2020, despite 3-4 movies coming out in the UK on streaming in the last year. The streaming and physical releases aren’t always tied together, and that could well change, but having also heard via the grapevine, a lot of distributors are slowly beginning to scale right back on DVD releases. Some are nixing it entirely. This is particularly true in the UK, and additionally those films still arriving on DVD, do so with adjusted expectations. The number of copies shifted to represent a success 5 years ago is far different to a more paltry number these days. In some ways a DVD is akin to a thumbnail. It’s a visual cue that someone might see on a shelf, but (if you’re lucky) just think about watching via a streamer. The US market still has a wider scope for physical media, and though it’s also becoming a dying format, I’m still getting films out on DVD there with regularity. Europe likewise, particularly Germany (where physical still seems to have a decent pull), the releases are regular. Increasingly though, it’s all about streaming. One of my films, Jack and Jill hit 3 million views through a YouTube specialist channel that got the first exclusive (it’s since hit the usual suspect streamers, and DVD in the US). Judging the success of that is tough, although I’d wager a DVD release in the UK would struggle to hit four figures in purchases.
So numbers are dwindling. The releases themselves are becoming more focused on films with named talent. Even many Bruce Willis features bypass DVD releases it seems (in the UK certainly. Mind you, the printers would struggle to keep pace with Brucey. Supermarkets might be a last bastion for in store DVD purchases, but several in the UK are scaling down on shelf space, and some are even cutting DVDs altogether in the coming months. If Walmart were to do the same in the US, you’d have a huge physical marketplace obliterated. It’s not unlikely sadly. It might seem unimaginable to many of a certain age, that there might come a time we’re almost entirely without DVDs available (outside of garage sales or charity shops and second hand stores). VHS. Remember those? Aside from the odd cult release to tickle the nostalgic bone of former VHS owners, the existence of those old beauties are consigned to attics, a dusty thrift store bargain bucket, or car boot sales. Maybe it’s inevitable DVD could go that way.
Is there hope? The hope lies in the collector. The aficionado. It lies on limited edition runs of cult classic cinema targeting people willing to pay double the cost of a regular DVD/Blu-ray for something a bit sexier. It might be from Arrow, Criterion, 88 Films, BFI Films, Eureka, Curzon etc. The only difference from now though, in five years, they’ll only be available online, sold to a select clientele and inevitably becoming expensive sell-ons through eBay etc. We may also still, for a few more years anyway, see a dwindling selection of physical media releases for the big titles. In the meantime, I’ll keep adding the odd film to my selection, including any of my own which find their way on a high street shelf (and I have a few in the offing which will have more than enough pull to garner a physical release for the next few years at least). It’s a little sad to see the slow death of a format, at least as a mainstream shelf filler, but that’s life I guess.
What are your thoughts on physical media potentially dying? Have you noticed a drop in presence in stores? Let us know your thoughts on our social channels @flickeringmyth…
Tom Jolliffe is an award winning screenwriter and passionate cinephile. He has a number of films out on DVD/VOD around the world and several releases due out in 2021/2022, including, Renegades (Lee Majors, Danny Trejo, Michael Pare, Tiny Lister, Nick Moran, Patsy Kensit, Ian Ogilvy and Billy Murray), Crackdown, When Darkness Falls and War of The Worlds: The Attack (Vincent Regan). Find more info at the best personal site you’ll ever see here.
