caligulathegod

Why do people think in absolutes? Sure it's a pay site. These sites are expensive. Hardware, software, bandwidth, etc. The monthly fee probably doesn't go as far as you'd think. I seem to recall no advertising on the site and there was much content and I was only a member the first few months. A little extra income helps pay for the content above and beyond the fee. I know that I sometimes work a little overtime to help pay for some of the extras in life.

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but I'd love to know where the attitude comes from that it is a sin to make money. I'm not talking greedy Bill Gates/Wal-mart money, but just being paid for offering a service or product. It's the whole Napsterization of society. We can get things for free, so why shouldn't we? Who cares if a person worked hard at making an entertainment? I deserve it for free or a cost I think is reasonable.

One thing I've learned from these boards. No one is forcing you to buy a product. Don't like changes in Star Wars? Don't buy it. Don't like the 15th release of Evil Dead? Don't buy it. Don't like that David Lynch is selling an obscure movie that maybe 1000 people even care about? Then don't buy it. Your kids won't starve or even whine because they are the only ones on the block who don't have Eraserhead. If they charged that for Shrek 2, I'd be mad, because the kids will demand I get it and they will make a gazillion bucks off of it if they sold it for a dollar.

I just know that this is one of the very few movies that I didn't mind paying the price. This movie is too special and unusual to be priced to sell at Wal-mart.

NatrlBornThrllr

$100 per year, per member. That's $10,000 per year for every 100 members on the site. It probably goes as far as I'd think.

The film industry brings in billions of dollars every year. John Travolta flies around the world in his own private economy airliners. Tom Cruise drives around town in his 6-figure luxury sports cars. Steven Spielberg lays his head on 1200 thread count sheets in his 40,000 square foot mansion. Pardon me if I don't shed a tear for Hollywood and their "barely getting by" paychecks.

People involved in the movie business (and especially those who have made a name for themselves) are not starving. You say you're not talking about Bill Gates/Wal-Mart money...well then what on earth are you talking about? Personally...I have no problem with somebody trying to make money. However, when that's attempted through ludicrous price points, I've also got no problem avoiding the product and voicing my opinion about how outrageous the prices are.

-JP

calhoun07

You are comparing David Lynch to Tom Cruise and Stephen Spielberg??? Isn't that like comparing Todd Solondz to Jerry Bruckheimer? That is pretty far fetched, if I may say so myself. But since you have gone there...

Let's take George Lucas, everybody's favorite punching bag. He started out as an independent director, struggling to break free of Hollywood's sway. George Lucas managed to finance not only all his Star Wars movies himself, but also has managed to finance the special effects on many of the biggest movies of our life time by squaring away a deal that let him make A LOT of money off of merchandising for his movies. In other words, he did what he had to do at the time in the 70's to make money to try to get his Star Wars franchise off the ground. It was revolutionary at the time, no movie at the time had made money off of toys and merchandising, and now the man owns an empire.

How different is that from David Lynch trying to make money where he can off of his product? Until we see Eraserhead bed sheets, underoos and action figures selling left and right at Toys R Us, where else is this man going to generate money for his product other than on his own website? I don't even understand why people are still criticizing or going around about this topic here, as it has been pointed out several times there are other examples where single disc releases by smaller companies such as Criterion have commanded higher SRP prices. And comparing David Lynch to directorss who have gone on to create billion dollar empires based on their movies is beyond belief. While I am sure the man lives more comfortably than the rest of us, he isn't raking the money over on his movies. Show me how you can even compare Eraserhead to a Spielberg blockbuster or a Tom Cruise cookie cutter action flick, please.

NatrlBornThrllr

Of course he's not worth as much as Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts, but my point (which you gladly overlooked, it seems) is that he's not exactly walking the streets begging for a cheeseburger. He lives a life that 98% of America can only dream of. Honestly, I see no distinction between David Lynch and Bill Gates. Both have more money than anybody can hope to spend in a lifetime. In my opinion, you can add a dozen 0's to an unimaginable amount of money, and it'll still be nothing more than an unimaginable amount of money.

The poster I was responding to said, "and I'm not talking greedy Bill Gates/WalMart money." My point was that there's no distinction between David Lynch and Steven Spielberg, or between Steven Spielberg and Bill Gates. All of them have more money than they know what to do with...so pardon me if I don't bend over backwards to further pad their wallets by paying ridiculously inflated prices.

People responding to my claims that the cost is outrageous seem to be dancing in circles. Here's the path the thread has taken:

Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge sell "Animation Show - Volume 1" discs on their site for $20. Hertzfeldt's "Rejected" DVD is $20, too. Chuck Palahniuk sells "Postcards From the Future" for $20 dlvd. BMWFilms gives away their "The Hire" discs for no cost, and $3.75 shipping and handling. Yet Lynch, who is in the same boat as all of these examples...charges $50 apiece.

A quote from www.forbes.com - "...the site's monthly revenues now exceed its monthly expenses. 'Up to two-thirds of our money comes from our store,' says managing consultant Eric Bassett, 'but membership fees pay for the site overhead.'"

Source: http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/1007/012.html

Next?

...and now here we are. What's my response to this? Bullshit we're not talking about greed. Greed is all there is to it. Do you want evidence of this? Okay, here we go. From the same Forbes article:

Membership (1/3 of the monthly income from the site) pays for the $40,000 per month maintainence. The other two thirds come from the store, and are pure profit. That's $80,000 per month. $80,000. Per. Month. If that's not greed, I don't know what is.

David Lynch is willing to fuck his fans in the ass by charging $30 more than is necessary for Eraserhead, just because he can. Plain and fucking simple. It's been proven that independently manufactured and distributed discs can be sold for dirt cheap. It's been proven that he doesn't need the extra income to fund his site. It comes down to one thing, and one thing only: he's willing to rape his fans out of an extra $30 simply because he can.

That's the fact of the matter, and all I've said from the start is that I'm not going to further pad his already stuffed wallet by paying an insultingly inflated price for these discs...and now that we're clear on what the situation is, I'd appreciate it everybody would politely step off my ass.

-JP

Josh Z

You have a profound misconception of how the movie industry works. Not everyone who works on or makes a movie is automatically a millionaire. Most are just technicians who barely make enough money in a year to pay the rent. Even writers and directors tend to make shit except for the small elite few Spielbergs, Bays, and Camerons. It's the studio heads that rake in all the cash, not their employees. This is no different than the rest of corporate America, where the CEO makes an 8 figure salary while the employees who actually do the real work can't pay their mortgages.

Compound this with the fact that Lynch works exclusively in small independent films that have a history of earning less money at the box office than even their meager budgets. I'm not saying the man's a beggar. I'm sure he's been savvy enough to keep himself well supported, but he's hardly swimming in cash or sleeping on a mattress of $100 bills.

If that's the way you feel, don't buy it. Plain and fucking simple.

TomOpus

This is called "income". We're all allowed to have a steady income, right? If people (fans) are willing to pay, then where's the problem? I'd be willing to bet if your job gave you a $1000 a month raise, you'd take it in a heartbeat. But you're doing the same job for more money... man, that's just greedy.

You say that he's charging too much for Eraserhead because he's already making money off his site. Using that logic, Spielberg and Lucas (among others) should GIVE AWAY their DVDs since their movies/merchandice bring in so much money already.

NatrlBornThrllr

Yeah, I forgot...a 3-time Oscar nominated director gets paid beans to direct a feature. Silly me.

On a side note, you seem to enjoy posting, then not responding when your point is proved to be invalid. Case in point: your being aghast at the notion that more than a few hundred people would be interested in Eraserhead at a lower price point. Both myself and another poster pointed out how ludicrous that notion was...yet your next post here ignores that fact and (poorly) attempts to pick apart a separate issue. There's really no sense in my disproving every unfounded notion you pull out of your ass if all you'll do is ignore logic and wait for something else you can attempt to poorly dispute.

Gotta love those slippery slope arguments. "OMG if you think he should charge what the market has determined to be a fair value, that means these other guys should give DVD's away for free!!1" That's comparable to, "you think gay marriage should be legalized? Well then that means people should be allowed to marry horses too." It's an illogical jump from one stance to another.

Regarding your "steady income" bit...I've got no problem with somebody having a steady income. However, when additional, superfluous income of nearly $1,000,000 a year comes at the expense of a director's fans (when the same income could be had well into the six figures, without shamelessly taking advantage of your fanbase)...then that's crosses the line from "steady income" to unappreciative greed.

-JP

caligulathegod

Superfluous income? I suppose content doesn't cost anything. Creativity is given by God and should be given away for free. The discussion pretty much ends there if that's what you believe for no convincing will change it. Not when you can go to Kazaa and get creativity for free.

Also, I suppose when most of us make 5 figures a year there's no difference between 7 figures and 11-12 figures. I'd just like to say there is a profound difference between Bill Gates and Walton money and everyone else. When you can set up a system where you can monopolize whatever business you are in and rake in billions in pure profit compared to someone who creates a site that pays for its overhead and content with a little profit by selling a couple movies and trinkets and membership fees.

Again, just don't buy it. Lynch isn't running everyone else out of business so he's the only source of everything you buy. He's selling one movie and one set of early shorts and mouse pads, fer chrissake. I guess that makes him evil.

NatrlBornThrllr

Main Entry: superfluous1
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: more than enough; overabundant; extra
Etymology: Latin super- + fluere `to flow'

For fuck's sake, why does every single person who feels like sticking up for David Lynch feel the need to tell me not to buy the DVD? Do you people even bother to read my posts? From the outset, and in nearly every post since, I've made it quite clear that I'm not going to buy the disc. However, seeing that these are message boards about DVD's...I don't feel that I'm speaking out of place when chastising him for taking advantage of his fans by selling this particular release at a ridiculously inflated pricepoint (and there's no way of disputing the fact that this is exactly what he's doing).

For the third time, if guys like Chuck Palahniuk and Don Hertzfeldt can manage to manufacture and distribute DVD's to their fans for $20, there's no reason that David Lynch has to charge $50. It's simply a matter of greed, and of David Lynch taking advantage of his loyal fanbase solely because he can.

-JP

auto

Exactly right. Well said.

scott shelton

No. Not really.

Hey, you asked...

docF94

I'm just a poor schlub struggling to get by, whine whine whine about myself. But I'm buying this - and trying to swallow my anxiety and pony up for the short films, too.

There is clearly a large market for the films at this price-point. I can' believe that's honestly being disputed. It's a unique price-point, but these are unique works.

I think a lot of the anxiety about this high priced set will be to open the floodgates to higher prices all around. I doubt Lynch will be responsible for the Criterion Collection bumping it's MSRP from $39.95 to $44.95, and eventually $49.95. It is as likely that DVD prices will go up as that the Eraserhead price will go down - but at the moment, I'm sure Lynch's income took a quick jump, and indie directors everywhere - Sam Raimis, Michael Moores, Jonathan Caouettes, John Cameron Mitchells, gregg arakis, and the rest - are taking notice.

Priced out of your range, but you want it anyway? Befriend Santa Claus, start advertising your Amazon wish-list on your blog and make your blog more popular with sycophants, move to a decent metropolitan area and scour the coolest used record stores there. Save your money.

And, hey, did I see something in the Bargains forum about a potential sale at DDD?

Ko ke fee naa.

mifuneral

What I find hilarious is the guy who makes a sculpture of a cow out of cow shit, the guy who refuses to work in tv because tv wants shows that'll get viewers more than shows that are art, a guy who, in sum and total is art for art's sake without a thought to the monotary value of things........this is the guy charging $40 for a dvd.

heh, but, whatever, right? If it's available through Netflix, who the hell cares. Just rent it for next to nothing. Rent it as many times as you want. It's not like Eraserhead is the type of film that begs to be watched over and over and over again. I'm sure the occasional rent of Eraserhead and/or Short films could sate the needs of even the biggest Lynch fan.

Josh Z

Award nominations don't mean anything to studio executives, except as a possible promotional tool. Box office profitability is the only thing that means anything, and Lynch's films don't make much money. In addition, Lynch takes a pay cut on every movie he makes to ensure the right of final cut.

By your logic, 3-time nominee Lynch must be making much more money than Michael Bay, who has never been nominated for any major award, right?

I'm still waiting for my point to be proved invalid. The fact that you and one other person say that "thousands upon thousands" of people would be clamoring to buy copies of Eraserhead doesn't make it true.

Let's say you are right, though, and there are 10,000 people willing to buy a copy of Eraserhead but only at the $20 price point (as you claimed in a previous post). Even if we could come up with a scenario whereby Lynch takes in 100% of the proceeds of every DVD sale with no overhead whatsoever (completely impossible, of course, but this is all theoretical anyway), that's a grand total of $200,000 he'd be making. Now, let's factor in the amount of money Lynch had to spend to buy back the rights to the film from the distributor that previously owned them, and the amount of money he spent to restore the film frame-by-frame for optimal picture quality. That $200,000 doesn't stretch very far, does it?

Did Chuck Palahniuk and Don Hertzfeldt have to buy the rights to their projects from other ownership or restore them from 20 year old negatives?

This is a fruitless argument that you are waging. You are wrong on every single point you're trying to make. Let it go and move on with your life.

You complain when people tell you, "If you don't like it, then don't buy it", but that is exactly what you should be doing. If you aren't happy with the DVD release, vote with your dollar. Prove to David Lynch that he's making a mistake by withholding your money from him.

Randy Miller III

I just wanted to make sure everybody saw and understood this excellent point. Carry on with your objective observations.

Drop

First off no one is being taken advantage off. If people want to pay 50 bucks they will pay it, it is because they want to.

Secondly, Chuck Palahniuk, Herztfeldt and Lynch are all different people with different products being released. First of all Palahniuk has so little to do with the release of his DVD. It's his "official" site that it doing it, he makes little if nothing off of it. This is by fans for fans, completely different agenda. Also do you realize his site now charges a fee as well? I won't comment on Herztfeldt because I don't know the situation well.

Eraserhead was a labour of love that took over 5 years for Lynch just to film. It is his most personal and obviously he treats it like his baby. He may do whatever he wants. Lynch does not make the big bucks. He probably doesn't make money of his site, and he probably doesn't make money of the DVD. He did it all himself, and he is probably just breaking even.

caligulathegod

Hertfeldt's Rejected is a 9 minute cartoon with stick figures. Not quite the same effort. Maybe if Lynch charges $40 for Dumbland there might be a point.

NatrlBornThrllr

...you've never heard of "The Animation Show," I see.

-JP

Sid Ceaser

So much hostility about uncle Dave and his silly movie.

I'm not looking to feed the flames, but I don't see the problem with paying 40 bucks for the dvd. Personally, I don't have the forty clams right now for the disc (but I do have a tasty japanese widescreen Laserdisc with a decent print to tide me over for now), but if I did have it, I'd pick it up. Much like how I'm willing to spend 200 bucks on a Dave McKean lithograph, or other photographic prints.

As a photographer myself, I don't mind what he's doing. Some people don't like the prices of my prints, and they don't buy. Some think the work is worth the money, and they buy. Different strokes for different folks.

I don't think he's ass-raping me for buying his Short Films set, just as I don't think I'm ass-raping someone that purchases a photograph from my gallery. It's just one way of making a little cash to help make a living.

I do, however, think it odd that for 80 bucks, I can get the Eraserhead box with Dave's signature on it. 40 dollars for an autograph seems a little weird. Still, if I was a big enough Dave nutball, I could see myself dropping the cash so I could smell the sharpie he signed it with and give it a few hugs.

PopcornTreeCt

1. Ok, fair enough.
2. Yeah, still can't walk into my local Borders and pick this up.
4. I'm sure more people have heard of Eraserhead instead of Diary of a Country Priest or even Jules et Jim

calhoun07

If I recall right, Eraserhead was a title that a lot of people heard about back in it's day. It got decent exposure. Maybe not exposure on the same level of Elephant Man or Twin Peaks, but maybe about as much as Mulholland Drive, maybe a little more. I am not saying masses of people rushed to see it, but I think more people were interested in the movie when it came out than some people might think, and it seemed to do better in home video and at midnight showings.

Coincidently, the UK version of the DVD is ranked at 1552 currently. It would set you back about $30.00-$48.00 to buy it (depending which seller you choose to buy it from on there).

jbnugent

$40 for Eraserhead AND Anal Sex!?!?!?!

COUNT ME IN! WAAAY IN!!!

calhoun07

mapasu

jbnugent

my pricing was wrong... $50 and a buggering. STILL A BARGAIN!