New Alice in Wonderland Film

The new blockbuster film 'Alice in Wonderland', directed by Tim Burton to be released 5th March 2010 to cinemas in the UK, however it has recently been reported that the film will also be distributed on DVD only 3 months later (rather than the 'Gentleman's agreement of 5-6 month delay), causing the Odeon cinema's withdrawal from showing the film, due to the chance of reduced revenue, as a large percentage of the audience may consider waiting to buy the film on disc, rather than going to the cinema.

Although this may seem a disadvantage to the cinemas, one reason for the distributors releasing the film on disc earlier is to decrease piracy levels to increase revenue for production companies. With the increased use of the internet, faster internet speeds, and the use of DV cameras, piracy levels have increased, so distribution companies are attempting to release the film in the shortest time span possible, so that people will be able to buy it sooner, rather than reverting to watching the film on the internet for free. Digital distribution methods have allowed production companies to achieve some of these goals, using services like Netflix for XBox 360, which allows full HD, instant streaming of movies from the living room.

With threats to cinemas by the increasing use of technology with decreasing profit from each film due to piracy and new digital content, Odeon has decided not to show the film, reducing their costs in the chances that the film could make a loss.