15 years ago, if someone were to say to me that some of my favorite movies ever would have gone direct to video, I would have either laughed at them, or smacked them upside their fool heads. There would be no way for that to happen, not after watching crap like Darkman III or Dragonheart: A New Beginning. However, over the past 10 years, I’ve seen a number of direct-to-video films that have been surprisingly decent, if not outright fantastic. So, why would a film go direct to video in the first place? There a number of reasons, some are more practical than others, especially in the last 8 years. From my point-of-view, one of the reasons why some movies skip the whole theater phase, is because the distributor sees the quality of the film and they feel that the film isn’t good enough to put people into seats. That’s a small answer and not entirely indicative for movie studios to push movies onto home video instead of theaters, but the full answer is actually a bit more complicated than that. Sometimes, the film in question is controversial, reviews are extremely negative, or there is simply a complete lack of interest on the public’s part, so going direct to video is a way for a production studio to still make money, even though profits are going to be pretty small. Nowadays, a film-maker that opts to push their film direct to video is for a number of legitimate and practical reasons. With the advent of social media like YouTube and streaming services like NetFlix, Hulu and Amazon Video, being able to make your film available to the public is a lot easier than it used to be. Before, at least in the United States, in order for a film to be released it had to be vetted by the MPAA(Motion Picture Association of America) before it could even be properly financed. Today, going straight to video allows film-makers to avoid that particular part of the process. The MPAA only real deals with films that go to major theater chains. They can’t really do anything about movies that skip the theater entirely. Indie film-makers have a better shot of being noticed on platforms like YouTube.
To be fair, the amount of bad direct to video movies generally outnumber the good ones. A lot of it has to do with blatant cash-grabbing by movie studio to cash in on a potentially popular film. Let’s look at The Scorpion King for example. The first film starring Dwayne Johnson was already a spin-off of the Mummy movies by Stephen Sommers. While The Scorpion King wasn’t the success that Universal Pictures was hoping for, it did launch the film career of Dwayne Johnson, whose star has been rising ever since. So, imagine my surprise when a new film was released in 2008, Rise of A Warrior. The film was directed by Russell Mulcahy, the guy who directed Highlander, so how bad could it be? I watched it once in 2008 and hadn’t seen it until two days ago. It is NOT a good movie, and the production values are laughable. I hated the movie when I first saw it. Watching it again after a decade, I don’t hate it as much, but it is still not a good movie. For some odd reason, Universal still kicked out multiple Scorpion King films that includes the recent Book of Souls film, which is an improvement over the previous films. Same thing with Dragonheart, which had three follow-ups, only one of which was remotely decent: The Sorcerer’s Curse. On the flip-side, Universal’s Tremors films have enjoyed a cult following ever since the original film starring Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. The follow-up films, of which there are five, are surprisingly pretty decent. Why is that? I think that Universal knew that there was a market of sorts for Tremors and there were fans that were willing to shell out money for those films, myself included.
Now, the films that get released direct to video are generally going to be restricted to specific genres, specifically action, horror, and thrillers. Horror movies in particular are more likely to find success on home video than they are in theaters, although, there are exceptions. Again, the reason goes back to the MPAA dictating what kind of content goes into a film with a particular rating. A movie with a PG-13 isn’t likely to see people getting raped or disemboweled. On the other hand, a film with an R-rating isn’t going to get the financing that it may need to really push the envelope in the way that the film-makers want, so there is a bit of a conundrum. These days, getting a film released to video doesn’t require the blessing of the MPAA or whatever ratings board that’s in charge for a specific region. I understand the purpose for these rating boards, but as time goes on and technology advances, these boards and lobbies are become more and more irrelevant. We’ve even seen movies get a simultaneous theatrical and video-on-demand release. Now, there are some big film-makers like Christopher Nolan who speak out against movies skipping the theater and going to Netflix. I get where he’s coming from, and I appreciate the movie-going experience, but it’s gotten worse over the years, with people and their smartphones just jabbering away while I’m trying to watch a movie. I still go to the theater for certain movies, but I’ve been more looking more towards the direct-to-video market for movies these days.
We’re starting to see a lot more direct to video movies that are getting more attention. Warner Bros. has been making a killing with their DTV animated DC movies, some of which I own and are incredible. Another thing that most people don’t take into consideration are foreign films. While these movies have a theatrical release in their home regions, they tend to go direct to video here in the states, and that’s a shame, because some of these movies put OUR big-budget titles to shame. Movies like The Raid or I Saw The Devil are some of the best movies of their kind, and yet they don’t get a release in our theaters. Why? Is it because of the content? It’s hard to say. The MPAA may not be able to stop a film from being released, but they can stop a film from going to theaters, and that’s where platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu come in. They’re willing to finance these movies and give them a proper way of getting people to see them.
The direct to video market is expanding in a way that I never thought possible. It used to be a dumping ground for studios to drop their movies because they had no faith that these movies would be successful, and while they may not have been successful in theaters, there is an audience for these movies. It’s a lot bigger than you would think, and while these movies may not have the success of a theatrical release, people are starting to pay more attention to the DTV market. Not as many as I would hope, and I want to cover some the better DTV films in the future to show people that a movie doesn’t have to be theatrical to be a quality film. That is a standard that is quickly becoming outdated. 20 years ago, I would have said that DTV movies were the worst kind of tripe. These days, I’m far more open-minded, because I’ve seen DTV movies that actually rival their theatrically released cousins. While theatrically-released movies aren’t going away any time soon, we have more options than ever when it comes to movies. I think that the DTV market deserves more attention than it has been getting. So…expect me to start covering some of these films specifically over the next couple of months. You might find something you like.