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SUNDAY UPDATE: Twentieth Century Fox Film Chairman/CEO Jim Gianopulos tells me that the end card anti-piracy project was suggested by the Obama administration. “It was actually an idea of Vice President Biden’s when we visited him during a MPAA Board meeting earlier this year. We thought it was an excellent suggestion and adopted the idea and will continue for all movies going forward.” So far no other studio has adopted it.
PREVIOUS… SATURDAY: It’s hard for Hollywood to explain to consumers about the losses to the movie industry caused by piracy. Especially when talking heads like studio moguls and government officials try and fail. So kudos to Ted Gagliano, president of 20th Century Fox feature post-production, who began putting end cards on the studio’s movies like this one. 
It’s on Walden Media/Fox’s Chasing Mavericks now in theaters. It explains the hours and jobs involved in making movies and indicates how they will be lost through piracy. “This is something we instituted starting with Taken 2,” 20th Century Fox distribution boss Chris Aronson tells me. “I think it’s a fantastic initiative and am glad we are doing it. More should.”
Related: MPAA To Candidates: Anti-Piracy Remains A “Critical” Priority
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Oscarbait, since you clearly have access to a computer, it is your own fault for allowing your child to watch an “inappropriate” movie. If you can’t be bothered to look at IMDB or Wikipedia, you can just flat out Google “what is the MPAA rating for ___?” And if the movie is on physical media, it’s on the box. If it is on Netflix streaming, it is on the selection screen. Trailers also usually have that information as well. Some newer movies are putting the rating card up front, particularly on R films. Do not blame the studios for your laziness.
Piracy has existed for decades and it ultimately isn’t going away.
If anyone bemoaning piracy never taped songs off the radio or made a copy of a CD borrowed from a friend in their life then they can jump on their high horse about not paying for an artists work.
There are a multitude of reasons why sales are in trouble.
First, content – I don’t really care how much people put into the majority of the films made today. I get that they did. The problem is that the end result for most of these movies are often films barely worth watching once let alone forking out good money to own. So, perhaps if they made films worth owning?
Just a thought.
There’s also the invention of this stuff called iTunes, Netflix, Lovefilm which open up vast libraries of films people can rent over and over to their heart’s content without having to fork out for owning. Again, this is very helpful when most new films are one watch material at best.
I was one of those people who used to buy DVD’s by the bucketful, including special editions but eventually realised how many just sat there. So I sold a huge chunk of them off, whittled it down to a core collection and now I only buy stuff I believe I will get multiple viewings and enjoyment out of over future years. Which is a fraction of what I used to buy. I rent the rest.
Also, given the magic that is Hollywood Accounting which studios routinely use to screw folks over do not ask me to have sympathy which is unlimited for their ‘plight’. It’s not there. They are amongst the greatest hypocrites around.
Basically, piracy is a problem……….but it’s not THE problem.
The end card should be a picture of someone beating a dead horse.
I get it, sure – - but why PUNISH those that have legally gone to see the film. The whole piracy thing is childish – they subject folks who legally purchased a ticket or DVD to messages about piracy – we don’t support piracy – we’re here watching the film via legal means.
Secondly: I’ve seen a malfunctioning anti-piracy device at the Zeigfield – it was an awful experience with a blue light shinning in my eye every 2-minutes looking for pirates. RRRRRRR They of coarse found nothing (I wish one of those devices would malfunction during one of the Zeigfield’s big premiers to punish the moronic studio executives). If course it won’t matter with Chasing Mavericks, you have seen the box office numbers – worse than Won’t Back Down on Friday night. Can’t blame piracy on poor marketing (for the record I will legally see Chasing Mavericks this week by paying for a movie ticket at a local multiplex).
@Dave… Finally a voice of reason! Piracy does not hurt DVD sales. An industry that’s unwilling to respond to the cues of it’s consumers does. We’ve seen this before with the music industry who wanted to continue selling $20 cds full of songs no one wanted. Ala carte song buying made the cd obsolete the way Hulu is making cable providers weep. The movie industry needs to evolve.
Oh yeah Fox…you care SO much about the working man in Hollywood. You only try to crush every union’s demand for even the slightest microscopic piece of the pie and you cheat rightful owners of profit out of their shares through systematic accounting fraud. So we’re supposed to believe these numbers you trot out? REALLY?
And AGAIN…how many time must I fucking SAY it…piracy is NOT the problem you all say it is. It’s just a scapegoat…as mentioned above. When are the people that run this town stop thinking like fucking lawyers from 1980 and get with the reality of the changing entertainment technology world and what people actually might want WHEN they want it and not when its fits a model that justifies bloated overheads and Wall Street profiteers?
Seriously, if I see one more thing like this I am going to explode.
Indie films are not pirated. Avengers is pirated.
Go on to Piratebay and have a look at the number of download’s for “Your Sister’s Sister” and “Safety Not Guaranteed” and come back and say that again.
Personal judgement, individual responsibility. If you would never consider walking into a shop and lifting a DVD without payment, how can you justify uploading pirated material? The costs trickle down not up. The price points for both products and tickets go up and that is just the tip. Theft is theft no matter how you try to make yourselves feel better about it. Apparently, there is no conscience anymore. Regardless of what you think about the moguls, it is their investment. What investment have those pirating and uploading made?
I don’t think DVDs are becoming obsolete, the movie on a disc does not take up much space and I think studios are purposely leaving special features off of DVD’s and with movies coming from theaters to DVD, they are putting piss poor artwork on the DVD’s but giving Blu-Rays the better looking artwork and it’s all to force the upgrade to Blu-Ray. The Criterion Collection fits a lot of special features onto DVD, some companies who release obscure horror movies on DVD fit a bunch of special features onto a DVD, So why can’t major movie companies do that? It’s just pure greed for Hollywood not doing that because they are forcing the upgrade to Blu-Ray.
Good how? Perpetuating misinformation in defense of a fossilized business model. Enough already. The irony that this message debuts on this turd of a film – that would actually benefit from a little “piracy” – isn’t lost.
The rationalizations of piracy are BS. I refuse to do it for a very simple reason: I’m not a thief.
Self-entitled crybabies can rationalize their behavior however they like, but the fact remains: you are thieves. At the very least, don’t be hypocrites too. Just admit you are thieves. The honesty would be refreshing.
And no, I don’t work in the movie industry. Some people are driven by considerations that transcend self-interest, although I admit, we are very rare.
Well said Craig. The high prices of DVDs and the “Creative Accounting” are separate issues. I am glad 20th Century is doing something. I hope this is the first step in a strategy to curb piracy.
Until we enforce the laws nothing will change. If pirates could steal gasoline from refineries without penalties they would, and I guarantee all the excuses above would be used to justify it.
My heart goes out to the studios. Maybe when piracy is stopped, they’ll be able to pay me minimum wage or at the very least, a gas stipend. I know movie studios are great champions of labor laws so eventually they’ll come around…
I don’t know whether I should laugh or cry at the dinosaurs in these comments using DVD/Blu-Ray sales to prove their point. Piracy IS a problem, but declining DVD sales have nothing to do with that, grandpa. I don’t remember the last time I bought a DVD and I don’t know a single person who still buys physical copies of movies.
13,780 were producer credits on the film and 580,000 lawyer hours were spent arguing over size and placement on credit block.
Um ok let’s get into this….
Media has been inflated and over-valued for 40 years. It was a great time where people made crazy amounts of money.
You can’t basically treat consumers like crap for that long then have a cry when they don’t support you 100 percent.
I pay for legitimate content but the holier than thou attitude of the studios just makes me want to skip the bullshit and download everything.
The media industry is not too big to fail. Is a boxed set of one tv show really worth 100 dollars. Of course it is not. You can’t cry when you can no longer get those prices for your media.
Maybe treating consumers with respect instead of contempt.
Anyways all you anti piracy nuts scare me and your comments make this content buyer want to go the other way and stop doing so.
Please please please all of you be careful when you step down of your high horses.
I’ve always found this whole “does piracy hurt or not” thing just impossible for anyone to gain ground on.
There are different kind of pirates with different reasons to pirate. There are people in foreign countries who want content before it reaches their country so they pirate it because they want to stay caught up or the series may not even be offered in their country.
There are people who pirate because companies have decided releasing the television series on DVD isn’t profitable. There are also things where copyrights expire which make it impossible for people to get their hands on it anymore.
There are also people who try a product before they buy it. When I was younger, I’d watch bad bootlegs before deciding to go to the cinema. Reviews can’t be trusted by everyone. Some works cost more money and people want to try before they buy.
There are also people who pirate material because it’s more convenient. Buying things and then having the digital version is conveninent. Sometimes companies don’t allow digital versions without annoying loops to go through.
There are also people who pirate because it’s free and easy. Are these the most numerous?
There are pirates out there who care deeply for the movies that are made and do spend their money to support.
To generalize all pirates as self-entitled babies who are all thieves is ignorant. Stealing something from a store is completely different than downloading a movie online.
The same corporation that hacked into people’s phones and private messages wants to lecture me on ethics?
One other reason that these “end cards” are a bad Idea is because they further degrade the film going experience. Going to the movies is an activity that has a lot more competition than it used to, with videogames, podcasts, Tumblr, Pinteresting, Facebooking and other activities eating more of a person’s time. But compared to those, going to the movie theater is a lot more expensive, which is not a good thing to be in a bad economy.
Instead of digital projection tech lowering the cost to consumers, it raises the cost, making a trip to the movies a rarer occurrence, (except with dollar theaters, they do well). When people do decide to go, they know they have to eat beforehand or smuggle in food, because they don’t want to waste money on expensive, unhealthy food. That’s because theater owners have an unfavorable contract with studios that prompts them to compensate in lost revenue by charging higher than normal prices. So people who remember cheaper movie prices for tickets and food, will have a defensive attitude upon entering the theater.
Once they take their seat, they are subjected to loud music advertisements, and this music may not be to the customer’s taste, further frustrating them, while they wait for the movie. Show time for the movie is usually delayed by 5-10 minutes, and then it isn’t the movie that shows, but rather 30 minutes of advertisements, many are not even for films, but cars or other consumer goods, and some of these ads may be reapeated 2-4 times! At such a point, the customer feels enraged, their time has been wasted, their experience a grueling marathon of sell sell sell, that may make them decide to stay away from the theater for awhile and engage in those competing technologies on the internet, or to just bit torrent their next film, to bypass this terrible user experience.
Movie Going is an experience, and the moguls of the past knew that, and added value to the customers with unique and ornate theaters, bonus cartoons and newsreels plus cheap affordable snacks. It was a nice getaway, even during the depression. But today the experience is the opposite of that, people feel that it takes more than it gives, so they stay away from theaters. Adding end cards will not resolve this problem, but may exacerbate it.
Since the message is the last screen of the film, at the end of the credits, only one person in a thousand is ever going to see it.
HOLLYWOOD studios talking about piracy… well it’s like Wall Street talking about strict accounting practices.
HOLLYWOOD has always been about piracy, stealing ideas, cheating on residuals, and laundering money. 20th Century Fox still claims the old BATMAN tv show never made any money, as with ALIEN and hundreds of other movies and tv shows.
No one keeps more sets of books than HOLLYWOOD -they don’t call it “creative bookeeping” for nothing!
You’ve hit the head on the nail.
If i remember right, I think the first studios came out to Los Angeles from New York to avoid copyright investigators hired by Edison over the use of his technology without consent or paying Royalties. I believe there was a big legal case about this that changed the rules in Hollywood.
So how ironic is it that Fox studios started as an copyright violator, and now is hunting them.
After thinking about this a bit, I believe theater owners and Directors would be against adding “End Cards.”
For the Directors, they want to have people leaving the theater with a specific emotion created by the final scenes of the movie. So if you put end cards after the movie, the emotions from those are the last things people leave with, wiping out all the efforts of the director. Could you imagine seeing some funny comedy, laughing your head off, and right before you leave, you get this depressing propaganda that makes you feel bad? That end card could affect your opinion of the comedy, and your recommendations of it. I’m guessing many in the DGA won’t be happy with that.
For Theater owners, the problem will be about how much extra time these cards will cost them. If you put them on all films, all that time adds up for a corporation, that could cost millions over time. I’m sure theater owners won’t want lose money just because Joe Bidden had an Idea.
News Corporation’s Filmed Entertainment division (20th Century Fox) made $1,132m in profit last year.
This is whiny, entitled multi-millionaires complaining they don’t make enough profits while pretending what they do is a public good rather than self-serving greed.
Be a modern-day Robin Hood: pirate a Fox film and give the money to charity or spend it in your local economy. They could do with the money more than Fox shareholders.
It’s interesting to read all the intelligent comments (the majority) giving reasons for the decline of DVD sales, etc. And then there are all the other comments who turn a blind eye to those reasonable and true explanations and continue to bleat about “piracy” as the root of all evil in the industry.
This is redonkulous.
The true cost of piracy is minimal. All this does is piss people off. That in turns makes people think about pirating. They are just annoying people into pirating.
It is trivially easy to pirate now and they make beacoup bucks as an industry. Please don’t tell me about the jobs lost. It is insulting.
“14,000 jobs” at even say $50K a year is a $700mm film. Or vastly more than has been spent on any film ever.
If Hollywood wants to start getting people to believe they are communicating honestly about the true scope and impact of the issue, they are going to have to start by providing numbers that aren’t ridiculous on their face.
I will begin to support this practice IF:
a) Studios and distributors agree to remove the ridiculous FBI warnings on DVD’s and Blu-ray discs (or at least allow you to fast forward or skip through them – which you currently cannot do. It is the worst form of fear-mongering propaganda which forces you to sit through it each and every time you pop in a disc to watch.)
b) They devote an equal amount of credit time to explaining the concept of fair use to audience members.