Movie Musing: Do Movie Pre-Orders Hurt The Box Office?

Movies Available to Pre-Order alongside Initial Premiere

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A recent phenomenon that has plagued the entertainment industry is movie pre-ordering. Most of the time, movies are available to pre-order as soon as it hits the box office, often coinciding with the premiere release. It happened with G.I. Joe: retaliation and Star Trek into Darkness. In my opinion, this has to hurt the box office.

Firstly, it provides a disincentive to go to the cinema. Most people would prefer to watch a movie at home in the comfort of their living room, without hassling in queues or having to struggle for space in between strangers. Besides, after a hard day’s work, you would want to lie back on the couch and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hit the road and then the movie theater (this is assuming that the economy hasn’t put you out of the workforce, in which case you’d be bustling with energy and rearing to leave the house). The pre-order acts as a substitute and then keeps people at home, thus having the effect of reducing box office sales.

But the thing is that box office sales have been good for these movies. Star Trek is still in the top 10 best-selling Blu-ray list on Amazon.com and has been for some weeks. Fast 6 is also holding sway, despite only being released last week. Both movies did see impressive box-office openings and are doing well in the pre-order market as well. One reason for this could be the positive hype surrounding the movies. Both movies have been critically acclaimed with a flood of positive reviews from both fans and critics, so naturally; you’d want the Blu-ray as well with the bonus of added content. And impatient viewers are anyway going to storm the theaters and seeing how good a movie is will persuade them to pre-order the DVD or Blu-ray. Therefore, the pre-order option seems to work, as viewers who watch the movie at the theater pre-order the Blu-ray and those lazy couch potatoes anyway pre-order it.

Boosted by this is the fact that pre-ordering movies create significant cost savings. Fast 6 had 50% off in the first week that it was available for pre-orders. Such mammoth discounts would lure any individual to spend early on, especially in a recession hit Western world where every dollar counts.

But you must still wonder. Would you want to spend twice on a movie (once at the cinema and then for the Blu-ray) within a short period of time? Would you want to go to the cinema or watch a movie at home comfortably? Making the pre-order function available early on can thus dissuade a certain market segment from going to the cinema. Especially if a movie has rave reviews (like Star Trek into Darkness) and you’re certain of it being amazing, you may opt to pre-order and stay at home. Hardcore cinema goers will disagree, but what about the more patient consumer? Of course, the pre-order doesn’t mean you get the movie before the usual Blu-ray release but once the option is out there and at heavily discounted rates, people react quickly. Box office sales have been exceptional, but could they have been higher if pre-orders weren’t available? And anyway, does it even matter; movie studios get richer and wealthier either way.