Motion Pictures Not A Growth Business

According to Variety Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation recently told attendees at the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills that “Movies are not a growth business.”

Katzenberg believes that in the future “A movie will come out and you will have 17 days, that’s exactly three weekends, which is 95% of the revenue for 98% of movies. On the 18th day, these movies will be available everywhere ubiquitously and you will pay for the size. A movie screen will be $15. A 75” TV will be $4.00. A smartphone will be $1.99. That enterprise will exist throughout the world. When that happens, and it will happen, it will reinvent the enterprise of movies.”

He expects this scenario will play out within 10 years. As a result DreamWorks’ new interests are primarily include shortform, digital and television content.

At the same conference Greg Maffei, president and CEO of Liberty Media Corp., a major distributor of programming including Discovery Channel, QVC, Encore and STARZ, pointed out that the amount of “clutter” in the entertainment universe, including videogames and social media, directly affects and reduces the value of the more traditional channels such as film.