One of Hollywood’s most influential movie executives is hardly bullish on his own product.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation and an industry heavyweight, told a global conference today that movies are no longer a “growth business.”
Katzenberg, a prominent backer of President Barack Obama and former chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, said television is a better bet in 2014 and that the movie paradigm will shift dramatically in roughly 10 years.
The business of movies as a traditional business has been challenged on many levels and it’s a not a growth business,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg today at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Beverly Hills. “TV is a growth business. Short form content is a growth business. Movies are not a growth business….”
“The model will change and you won’t pay for the window of availability you’ll pay for the inch that you watch,” Katzenberg told the packed ballroom at the Beverly Hilton. Saying he may be putting his foot in his mouth, the DWA boss predicted that movies will still come out on the big screen in a decade but what happens next will be the big shift. “On the 18th day it’ll be available everywhere and you’ll pay for it on the size of the device you watch it on,” he said. “When that happens and it will happen, it will reinvent the enterprise of movies.
Theater owners have traditionally balked at the shrinking window from theatrical release to home viewing. Katzenberg suggests their defenses can’t withstand the current tech revolution.
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