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Jupiter MediaMetrix warns Hollywood: don't distribute films on Internet yet - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

October 23, 2000 at 14:14:44

EV, a service by Variety, has published an article about a report just published by Jupiter MediaMetrix, the oldest Web statistics provider.

The company is advising the film industry not to consider distributing movies across the Internet before the year 2005, when estimates say approximately 36 per cent of surfers will have the broadband capacity required for downloading movies over the Internet.

The advice conflicts with industry expectations that more than 1,000,000 movies per day will be downloaded by the end of 2001 (most of them illegally). Companies like New Line Cinema and LucasFilm Ltd., who have invested heavily in multi-film arcs, have to weigh the possible impact that illegal movies from the Internet may have on their distribution revenues.

Add to this the growing problem with bankruptcies and theater closings among nearly all the major cinema operators in the United States, and Hollywood looks like it may be in for a bumpy ride over the next few years. The industry is concerned with heading off a Napster-like crisis without hurting profitability. Many movies already lose money or only break even, perhaps generating a small profit. The huge blockbuster films that rake in revenues are another factor in the equation, and these would be the most likely targets of Internet piracy.

Although it's highly unlikely that Peter Jackson's "The Fellowship of the Ring" would be distributed by the Internet, it's too soon to rule out what might happen with the third movie in the series, "The Return of the King", due for release at the end of 2003.