Who buys straight to DVD movies?

The closest I ever came to this was when the "Carlito's Way" prequel came out, and I couldn't find it available to rent. Then I saw Diddy was in it, assumed it was crap and passed. Still haven't seen it.

I did, however, buy several $1 DVDs on eBay. I didn't know what I was getting until gems like "Die Hard Dracula" arrived in the mail. Now that was choice cinema from Prague.

 

The American Pie sequels that have gone straight too DVD have done incredibly well. I think they've done three or four of them.

The other one is the Disney flicks, since so many parents will buy anything with Ariel, Simba or the Aladdin genie on it even if it has a title like "Ariel and Sebastian: Love under the sea" or Aladdin 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Low budgets and no marketing equal very low risk and a chance for big profit.

There's also the Alyssa Milano/Nicole Eggert formula.

Take a hot, washed up TV star, put her in lingerie on the cover and have something like, "Jodie Sweetin as you've never seen her before..." and watch people rent away.

 

American Pie: Band Camp sold a million DVDs in its first week released.

This form of entertainment is extremely lucrative ($3 billion per year, although most come from animated sequels). Steven Seagal makes more than 10 mil for some of those movies, and Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme can make about 4. They usually make up their budgets in U.S. home video sales alone, but cable and overseas can push some of the top films over $50 million made.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060515194442/http://www.dvdexclusive.com/article.asp?articleID=2259

 

I heard Jerry Rice interviewed on the radio this morning about it. To give you an idea of the level of humor, Rice's character's name is "Hal Gore."

 

The overseas markets are huge for washed-up action stars, especially ones of European descent.

If I'm not mistaken, most of those movies are released theatrically over there though.

I read somewhere that one of the American Pie sequels was made for $5 million and made $80 million in profit. That's a better profit margin than about 95 percent of the theatrical releases we'll have this year.

 

Hey, that reminds me, do Marvelous Marvin Hagler's movies ever make it to DVD in America? I think he's still Italy's biggest action star.

 

This is a question I don't know the answer to, but were all the movies Jim Brown appeared in quality flicks? He's got 55 credits to his name on IMDB, but I haven't heard of most of the stuff.

 

Somebody told me distributors told Danny Boyle that Slumdog Millionaire would be "straight to DVD."

Then he made a stop at Telluride, the buzz built, and there you go.

I bet there are some gems to be found in that lot.

 

Boys Don't Cry and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were two that were pretty close to being on the straight to DVD lists.

 

Here's the bigger question...

How many straight to DVD movies do you own?

I think Havoc is the only one I have.

 

I own none.

As I said before, I understand the market for Disney straight-to-DVDs. I can also understand the "Let's get Jodie Sweetin naked" market for straight-to-DVDs (although, wouldn't most people just download the, ahem, important scenes on the internet?).

But I just don't get who's buying movies like American Pie: Band Camp or the National Lampoon movies. If the first three of some series were all distributed in theaters and then they take an established franchise film and don't release it to theaters, shouldn't the typical moviegoer say, "Hmm, this is clearly terrible."

I just don't see myself ever buying a straight-to-DVD movie. I absolutely, unequivocally KNOW it will suck and therefore have no interest in wasting my time or money.

 

I don't own any, but I've netflixed the Stargate direct to DVD movies.
But that's mostly because I am a super nerd.