Dick Laurent

My brother is convinced that pricing of BD and DVD is based solely on how the movie performs at the box-office. No matter when the year of the movie; if its in production, it's price is set to re-coup box-office loss.

His latest example is Star Trek: Beyond on BD. He believes the current pre-order prices are high because it did poorly theatrically. I tell him that all BDs have the high MSRP, and then they all usually follow the same path of being on sale the first week of release and then marked up to MSRP until another sale happens usually in the next few months or so. And then later in the year stores like Amazon will fix the price at about 20% off, $24.96 marked to $19.99. While stores like FYE will keep at the MSRP.

Does anyone have a clue how media pricing really works? I always figure there's just a set pricing scale by the distributor, and then each store adjusts to what they want. I can't imagine there's someone studying every theatrical release to base a price on.

I worked at a record store about 20 years ago and all pricing was a set price, $17.99 for new CD, $14.99 for catalogue titles. This differs from movies because there is no box-office record preceding the release.

I'd appreciate any insight on this. Please don't just say my brother is right. That can't be...

davidh777

It's not based on box office. The studio determines the MSRP, and stores vary on the discounts they offer. Have him compare Star Trek Beyond with other Paramount titles.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Ask him if Spider-Man 3 was the hit of all time because it's MSRP was $70

edit: Oops, I guess it would have been the worse movie of all time that made no money

Alan Smithee

When I got into laserdiscs in the early 90s, I quickly learned pricing was largely dependent on studios. Some had lower prices than others, some charged $5 more for 2-disc (over 2 hours long) movies and some didn't, and some gave the prices a break if the VHS tape was sell-thru rather than rental priced. Same thing has been true of DVDs. I haven't really followed Blu-Ray pricing as much since there's no stores left (besides maybe Barnes and Noble) that sell those at list price.

Dick Laurent

Yes but couldn't the studios base the pricing for recouping loses at the box-office?

I found a receipt the other day where I had spent $49.99 for the Criterion LD of The Killer, and that was a single disc. Bought at Saturday Matinee, 10/28/97. I'll probably never watch that version of the movie again, but I'll also never part with that disc.

milo bloom

Could they? Maybe. Do they start it off high to try to recoup more money up front and risk even fewer people seeing it? Do they price it low and not make much money off the few people that did like it?

Or, more likely, do they price it at the same price range as every other release and let the market decide, with price reductions down the road like every other release?

davidh777

Dick Laurent, your brother has hacked your account.

Dick Laurent

Well put.



I should have prefaced that with a he would say...

Alan Smithee

Now that I think about it, Warner DID price some of their underperforming movies lower on DVD to encourage sales- this was likely because they were the main studio behind the format when it launched. Most of their titles were list-priced at $24.99, which was reasonable enough coming from laserdisc, but they priced some which didn't do so well in theaters at $19.99, which meant you could get them for $14.99 on sale which was a great value at the time. Ones I remember being priced at that upon release were Sphere, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Goodbye Lover, Soldier, Home Fries, The Avengers, and Lost and Found.

orangerunner

It's hard to say what factors determine the list price.

When rental stores were a huge chunk of the market, sales numbers were probably easier to predict because everything was based on pre-sales.

A smaller independent picture will probably list a higher MSRP because they are pressing a smaller number of copies. Because they press a smaller number, the price tends to not get discounted later on.

I imagine "What the market will bear" is ultimately the determining factor. The studio also has to factor in production costs for the extras, various licensing agreements, cost of producing several languages, subtitles etc.

majorjoe23

Disney's animated films and Marvel movies are usually huge hits, but rarely drop to a low price point.

Alan Smithee

Yep- remember Di$ney's first wave of animated titles on DVD first announced at $34.99, then they decided to raise it to $39.99? I felt lucky to get Hercules at Wal-Mart (which had just expanded to my area) for $24.99 back then! I've gotten a good number of their Blu-Rays for less than that, I think I even grabbed the first Blu release of Snow White for $19.99. The mentality has usually been to panic-buy those while they're available as they go in and out of print.