The Screening Room, the options you get

The Screening Room is a new movie-viewing medium founded by Sean Parker and Prem Akkaraju. The simplest way to describe it is this: movies can be rented and watched in your home the same day they are released theatrically but for a much higher price. It costs an initial one-time fee of $150 for the set-top box required, and any rental costs $50. The rental is available to you for 48 hours, but there is no clarity as to whether you are given 48 hours to watch it once or you can watch it as many times as you want within those 48 hours. With every rental, you are also given two free tickets to see the same movie at a theater of your choice.

This venture has already gained the support of Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Peter Jackson, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Fox, Sony and Universal have also shown interest. But it also has opposition from Christopher Nolan, James Cameron and Jon Landau. Theater chains could be given as much as 40% of the rental fees. But they’re also giving two free tickets with each rental.

This mostly comes down to the likeliness of moviegoers willing to pay $200 to see one movie and $50 for every movie after that. Remember, this isn’t like Amazon Video where you can just pay a rental fee to watch a movie with your credit card. It would be kind of like paying Amazon a flat $150 to join Amazon Prime for as long as you’d like and $50 every time you want to watch a movie. Except you have to wait a few months after the movies have been theatrically released.

There are multiple reasons why people would or wouldn’t use The Screening Room to watch a movie released to the public for the first time. The following are just a couple of scenarios when wanting to see a newly released movie.

One Person’s Convenience

The willingness to spend $50 for your own convenience varies by person. For whatever reason, some people may prefer to see a new movie at home on their own TV. The question is whether or not it’s worth an extra $40, roughly.

If you’re seeing a movie alone, money is arguably the biggest sacrifice you’ll make. Is it worth it to spend a flat $50 (no matinees, student, military, or senior citizen discounts) when you can spend as little as less than 10% of that, or at the most nearly a third of that to see it at a theater? Do picture and sound quality matter to you? If they do, how does your home viewing experience compare in terms of picture and sound quality to those of a movie theater?

You also might be sacrificing theater quality. Do you believe your home theater system is as good or better than the best movie theater in your area? Granted some movie theaters have shabby quality, thus the average medium-size flat screen TV could be more satisfying.

The bottom line is you’re paying for convenience. The convenience of staying home, not worrying about a show selling out, being able to eat whatever food you want, among others. You can make or break any rules a theater may or may not have. Does your reasoning justify spending so much more, in your opinion?

           

Parties/Family Outings

If you have a family of five or more who want to see a movie together, this is more likely to be the better option financially. Or your kid may want to celebrate his/her birthday by seeing a movie with his/her friends. Whether or not you alone pay for the tickets, or the parents of your kid’s friends pay for their own tickets, this still adds up to a lot.

You could also have a simple get together with friends/family. Everyone meets at the home of one person and watches the movie. This could be treated as a pay-per-view event. Everyone who attends could pay a little to the host, or the host alone could cover the entire cost. Either way, it’s very similar to meeting at a theater. Everyone pays for their own ticket or multiple tickets are bought by at least one person.

One downside is whether or not you can comfortably fit everyone into one room. If you can, you don’t have to worry about tickets being sold out or everyone sitting in the same vicinity.

Whether you choose to see a newly released movie in theaters or at home using The Screening Room, personal convenience and financial options are what will help you decide. If money is no issue for you, convenience is your best option. Someone might prefer to stay home and watch it in the confines of his/her own home. You don’t have to worry about someone else’s phone making a noise or the glare of the screen catching the corner of your eye.

The confines of your home may not be as solitary as one may hope. If your room isn’t soundproof you may have the occasional car driving by or airplane flying over. And you may have to deal with visual distractions. Whether it’s your neighbor pulling into the driveway at night with the headlights on or someone simply walking by, you may not feel as cutoff from the outside world as you would in a theater. When you’re in a movie theater, the only distractions that may catch your attention are what’s in the theater with you and what comes into it. You can’t hear other patrons in the hall talking, not to mention cars driving in the parking lot. At home, you can hear other people that may be living with you but aren’t watching the movie. Or if you live in close quarters like an apartment complex, you may have noisy neighbors.

The Screening Room provides more options for moviegoers, even in ways that may not be intended. The set-top box is said to have anti-piracy technology. While that is vague, this could also give movie pirates easier access. What’s to stop someone from renting a movie and watching it while a camera on a tripod records the movie itself? The $50 rental fee could be seen as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” fee.

A streaming service like Netflix is part of a new market with a new medium. While they mostly bring you selections of movies that can be watched on other mediums, they also bring some content that’s exclusive to their service. TV shows like “Orange is the New Black” and movies like “Beasts of No Nation.” It’s possible that The Screening Room could provide exclusive content down the road for filmmakers. It could do for Tyler Perry what Netflix did for Adam Sandler.

It was streaming services like Netflix that helped dig the grave for movie rental chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. No one can say for certain that The Screening Room won’t help dig the grave for movie theater chains like AMC and Landmark.