Hollywood is picking fights alongside his all-round first time in his stronghold of work of writers in 2007. And oddly, Christopher J. Dodd, once a powerful senator from Connecticut and now spokesman for the movie studios 'chief', was mainly the fray.
The shot is between studios and theater owners on a plan to slip a few movies into homes via video on demand shortly after their arrival in theaters. For Mr. Dodd, the new president of the Motion Picture Association of America is the industry crisis since it firstbegan in late March.
"I'm the new kid on the block," Mr. Dodd said in a telephone interview on Friday, acknowledging that both his relative inexperience and the need to stay away from business decisions made by the individual studios had held away from the battle. "Each company has their own opinion."
Studios, exhibitors and filmmakers argue about the future of the company, and if people in the coming years will be more inclined to watch movies in theaters or in home settings increasingly sophisticated imitating the quality, immediacy and, perhaps, cost of the theatrical experience today.
Last week, four studios - Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers - took the first step in their arrangement with DirecTV to release films in two months after their theatrical release.
The first premium offering at the request came Thursday as Sony DirecTV offered "Just Go With It" with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, for $ 30. Two dozen filmmakers, including James Cameron and Peter Jackson retaliated with an open letter criticizing the experiment as a threat to the theaters.
The Allies fight separate who recently joined to spend billions of dollars to upgrade the theaters to digital projection and 3-D, and used their combined political mightto defeat a proposed trade in financial exchange based on revenue at the box Office.
The rift highlights how little Mr. Dodd or someone else can do to mitigate the impact in a film company where the biggest challenges are not labor disputes or public political battles have been fought by State Hollywood past as MCA President R. Lew Wasserman or long service MPAA chief Jack Valenti.
Instead, the biggest challenges are philosophical and include choice of business largely outside the scope of a professional association, which is limited by antitrust law from interfering in the decisions that are truly the business rather than public policy - and therefore uncharacteristic restraint Mr. Dodd. In fact, the industry's difficulties are likely to become more severe than the companies believe that their film path to a digital future that is just beginning to unfold.
"What really happensis that the architecture industry is changing," said Jeff Berg, chairman of the agency International Creative Management.
Speaking by telephone last week, Mr. Berg predicted waves of increasingly rapid changes that have joined the film industry, as companies struggle to replace the loss of revenue DVDs with an income of two theaters digitally enhanced and new approaches, such as so-called digital vaults, allowing viewers to store movies they paid for a space pirate in the virtual test can see again.
"There is a great story that will be very disruptive," said Berg.
The violent response by the leaders of great movie channels such as Cinemark, AMC and Regal to step studios relatively cautious with the application is much more about setting up a line for future battles that it is losing the money from an Adam Sandler comedy that has left most of the week there are theaters.
"I have not felt this level of concern about a practice studio in our membership," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, who helped organize protest letter filmmakers (in accordance to the association that may tosome extent opposed to the plan without violating antitrust laws that have hampered the MPAA).
Mr. Fithian, also speaking last week, said theater owners were particularly shocked at how they learned of the program on demand: when they met last month at the convention in Las Vegas movie CinemaCon , , shortly after Mr. Dodd issued a enthusiasm for expressing address cinematic experience. The report was published on the website of the publication Variety.
The shot is between studios and theater owners on a plan to slip a few movies into homes via video on demand shortly after their arrival in theaters. For Mr. Dodd, the new president of the Motion Picture Association of America is the industry crisis since it firstbegan in late March.
"I'm the new kid on the block," Mr. Dodd said in a telephone interview on Friday, acknowledging that both his relative inexperience and the need to stay away from business decisions made by the individual studios had held away from the battle. "Each company has their own opinion."
Studios, exhibitors and filmmakers argue about the future of the company, and if people in the coming years will be more inclined to watch movies in theaters or in home settings increasingly sophisticated imitating the quality, immediacy and, perhaps, cost of the theatrical experience today.
Last week, four studios - Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers - took the first step in their arrangement with DirecTV to release films in two months after their theatrical release.
The first premium offering at the request came Thursday as Sony DirecTV offered "Just Go With It" with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, for $ 30. Two dozen filmmakers, including James Cameron and Peter Jackson retaliated with an open letter criticizing the experiment as a threat to the theaters.
The Allies fight separate who recently joined to spend billions of dollars to upgrade the theaters to digital projection and 3-D, and used their combined political mightto defeat a proposed trade in financial exchange based on revenue at the box Office.
The rift highlights how little Mr. Dodd or someone else can do to mitigate the impact in a film company where the biggest challenges are not labor disputes or public political battles have been fought by State Hollywood past as MCA President R. Lew Wasserman or long service MPAA chief Jack Valenti.
Instead, the biggest challenges are philosophical and include choice of business largely outside the scope of a professional association, which is limited by antitrust law from interfering in the decisions that are truly the business rather than public policy - and therefore uncharacteristic restraint Mr. Dodd. In fact, the industry's difficulties are likely to become more severe than the companies believe that their film path to a digital future that is just beginning to unfold.
"What really happensis that the architecture industry is changing," said Jeff Berg, chairman of the agency International Creative Management.
Speaking by telephone last week, Mr. Berg predicted waves of increasingly rapid changes that have joined the film industry, as companies struggle to replace the loss of revenue DVDs with an income of two theaters digitally enhanced and new approaches, such as so-called digital vaults, allowing viewers to store movies they paid for a space pirate in the virtual test can see again.
"There is a great story that will be very disruptive," said Berg.
The violent response by the leaders of great movie channels such as Cinemark, AMC and Regal to step studios relatively cautious with the application is much more about setting up a line for future battles that it is losing the money from an Adam Sandler comedy that has left most of the week there are theaters.
"I have not felt this level of concern about a practice studio in our membership," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, who helped organize protest letter filmmakers (in accordance to the association that may tosome extent opposed to the plan without violating antitrust laws that have hampered the MPAA).
Mr. Fithian, also speaking last week, said theater owners were particularly shocked at how they learned of the program on demand: when they met last month at the convention in Las Vegas movie CinemaCon , , shortly after Mr. Dodd issued a enthusiasm for expressing address cinematic experience. The report was published on the website of the publication Variety.
