Brent,

I expect that yesterday’s Gemini Division release was a highly anticipated and frenetic moment for you and the web-at-large and wanted to make sure that my message wasn’t misconstrued in the noise that surrounded it. (more…)

Pricing is one of the most interesting and yet misunderstood components of digital distribution.

I don’t mean pricing in terms of end-user costs, although that’s a fascinating discussion in its own right. I mean pricing in terms of the value of content interactions that an intellectual property owner should look to extract when selling their content.

In other words, if I’m a content owner, I want to license my show at a variable price which will maximize the value of each interaction that said show will generate. How do I do that in the current state of the digital world? (more…)

A few pics from Comic-Con. Then I’m going cold turkey.

Our Xbox Original Content panel filled the conference hall, drawing an overcapacity crowd of 800 fans. Admittedly, I was nervous as to the reaction we’d get when we showed the trailers. There might not be a more discriminating mob than a packed Comic-Con crowd. When you’re partnering with the Imperial Microsoft and half of your audience is dressed as Jedi Knights with the intergalactic obligation to uphold the standards and practices of the Rebellion, you don’t know what to expect. Much to my relief, the crowd embraced the shows and the filmmakers. It was a great event. (more…)

Today, Safran Digital went public with the details of our partnership with Xbox. In particular, we’ve announced the directors for our slate of original web video pilots, which launch this fall to coincide with Xbox’s user-interface redesign.

The directors involved include James Wan (Saw, Death Sentence), David Slade (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy), James Gunn (Slither), Lucky McKee (May), Andrew Douglas (The Amityville Horror) and Marcus Nispel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th).

I’m extremely proud of the filmmakers and their camps, the deal we’ve put together and what I believe it represents for the future of digital content economics. (more…)

NPR’s Claude Brodesser recently asked Wired Magazine’s Chris Anderson for his thoughts on the size and effectiveness of movie marketing budgets. Claude suggested that the new Indiana Jones movie was so highly anticipated, had such awareness and pedigree that despite opening to over $311 million worldwide, Paramount must have overspent in its $100 million plus marketing campaign. Right?

Nobody knows anything.

Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman’s famous dictum about Hollywood starts to answer the question, Chris Anderson completes it. (more…)