The DVD Blend: Too Late For Oscar Movies To Recruit You

The big release this week is Milk, finally giving people who missed the movie in theaters the chance to see Sean Penn’s award winning performance as political rabble rouser Harvey Milk. While it’s great to see the performance after the fact, I can’t help but wonder why the studio wouldn’t want to promote the film, or others in similar situations, with an earlier release that might expose the picture to a wider audience.

The way the Oscars work can be pretty frustrating for the average person outside of New York and Los Angeles. Movies receive nominations that may have only played for a week or two at a local arthouse, or may not have been released at all. If we’re lucky, the added Oscar attention offers the film a wider release (or re-release), but frequently, that doesn’t even happen (look at this year’s Frozen River, who many people hadn’t even heard of).

Studios typically hold off from giving their Oscar contenders a home entertainment release so they can paste that “Winner of x Awards” on the DVD case artwork. I’m sure there’s a study somewhere that indicates that little label helps sell DVDs. I think releasing movies during the time period between the announcement of nominations and winners being announced would make a heck of a lot more sense though.

That Oscar Tag Doesn’t Mean As Much Once The Awards Are Done

While that “Winner of x Awards” on the DVD case does look impressive, only one movie in each category gets to actually make use of that. Four other movies may have pushed back their release to a point that the movie can’t make use of any press from the awards season. Quick - off the top of your head - who else was nominated for Best Actor besides Sean Penn? Can you name all five? In a quick poll conducted preparing for this article, most average shopper couldn’t. That means four other pictures may have missed out on bragging rights they could have gotten by releasing their movie earlier with a “Nominated for X Award” on their case. Adding ammunition to this argument - I stated above that Milk was the big release this week. Rachel Getting Married, which got Anne Hathaway a nomination, but not a win, also came out this week. Even writing this column I’m accidentally overlooking the release that didn’t get the award.

Along that same mode of thinking, movie fans tend to be seeking out the nominated movies during that window between announcement and award. Doubt may be a great flick, but it didn’t win in the categories it was nominated for, so I’m less interested in seeing it now that the awards are over with. A month ago, however, I would have loved to have the opportunity to pull up the movie on my DVD player, DVR, or computer, which is also why piracy of Oscar screeners is such a prolific business for video pirates.

Studios would be wise to embrace the age we live in and make their nominated movies more available during the period that there’s a higher demand to see them, especially if the movies aren’t currently playing in wide-spread theatrical release. Whether that availability comes in the form of a preliminary DVD release (not that we suggest double dipping here) or making an electronic version of the movie available over On-Demand, the Internet, or other means is something to be experimented with, but studios are missing out on a huge window of opportunity by releasing Milk, Rachel Getting Married, and other films weeks after the whole process is finished.