Remember when notorious loudmouth Mark Cuban and his business partner, Todd Wagner, sold Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion? They've been spending the proceeds on a variety of film production and distribution firms (and the Dallas Mavericks) ever since. Now the duo have their crown jewel, Landmark Theatres, the largest US art-house chain. Put it all together, and Cuban thinks he's ready to turn filmmaking on its ear. A revolution, or a throwback to the Hollywood conglomerates of old?
WIRED: How does Landmark fit into the Mark Cuban empire?
CUBAN: We produce movies in the $10 to $25 million range through our company 2929 Productions, and films in the $1 million range through [our television network] HDnet. We can take the best of our films and the best of others', and display them in theaters or on HDTV. Everything will be digital, which gives us the freedom to break the business rules that everyone in Hollywood plays by.
For example?
Why can't I preorder a DVD and receive it the day the film is released in theaters? Or buy it on my way out of the theater if I liked what I saw? One thing I learned from the Mavs is that you can watch the game on TV, but you'll still go to the game, because it's a different experience.
How is this any different from the studio conglomerates that led to antitrust laws?
Digital makes filmmaking cheaper and more accessible, so we see ourselves as a conduit for new, independent voices who'd otherwise never have a shot. You could shoot your film on digital, dump it on a hard drive, edit it on a laptop, send us that file, and 20 minutes later we could show it in a theater or upload it to a satellite. You could say that if we became huge, we'd risk becoming a Microsoft. But if we become huge, we want to become more like a Linux.
Are you concerned about piracy in movie theaters?
Not one bit. If we can't compete with some guy sneaking a camera into the theater, or a blurry, encoded, postage stamp-sized file, then please - just shoot us.
What makes you the best guy to pull this off?
Maybe I'm not. But technology is always going to do its job. My strength is being able to recognize the obvious in a digital world and turn it into a business.
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