“Creating a rental window is not a punitive action,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said. “It’s a decision that the retailers and studios can make together. If the studios can entice a rentailer to create a rental window, I believe that rentailers, studios and consumers can all benefit from it.” He would not comment specifically on the pricing Netflix is looking for, but did confirm it is seeking discounts in exchange for the window.

While Netflix claims 70% of its business is in catalogue titles, I don’t see any indication for why consumers should be happy with this. Would some of Netflix’s savings be passed on to its customers in the form of cheaper subscription rates? Or would they perhaps buy more stock of those new releases so those who want them can get them sooner? Of course, a healthy industry ultimately helps keep this content coming, but if Netflix subscribers, like myself, saw nothing out of a potential deal like this, that would be a tough pill to swallow.

“The economics with Netflix don’t work for us,” said another studio source. “There are several ways to change the outcome, one way is windowing, rev-share or acquisition price. But the economics need to change.”

There’s little doubt change is coming, but my cynical side says consumers are going to get screwed.

Peter Laird talked about the sale on his blog, and how he wasn’t necessarily looking to sell but Nickelodeon came along with a good offer that he was comfortable with. Laird expresses the fact that he’s somewhat worn out of the Turtles, what with them turning 25 years old this year, meaning he’s spent very close to half his life managing these characters. I recommend reading the entirety of his thoughts. They’re pretty honest and open about what happens from here on out. If you care to read the full press release announcing the sale, Reuters has it.

Of course, Pixar was brought up as a possible use for Marvel properties and Bob Iger said Disney has had internal discussions about such collaborations and that John Lasseter spoke to some Marvel guys about it. Iger said “the group got pretty excited pretty fast” and that “sparks will fly.” Sounds like he wants shareholders to be excited about potential Pixar/Marvel productions. In a vacuum that seems incredibly cool, although it would mean Pixar dedicating a production cycle to a Marvel film instead of an original concept. Plus, which characters are available that you’d actually want to see a Pixar film use? Again, Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. are booked at other studios and Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, etc. have their own big live-action movies, so what big guns are left? Maybe Pixar could do something with Marvel’s newly acquired Marvelman character. Anyway, if a joint effort ever occurred I’d bet on 2014 being the earliest you’d see it.

Suffice to say, there are a lot of possibilities for Disney to utilize the Marvel characters, at least in the long run.

Fox does say that this experiment could be brought back for certain events, like one-off specials or film premieres. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a series premiere or finale get this treatment once in a while either.

*The report says rentention for these ad breaks rose to 92% from Fox’s 88% average. I’d love to see a study that goes beyond simply which channel was on the television for those breaks and showed the certain increase in viewers actually staying in the room and watching those commercials. I’m sure that had a much higher gain.

This is what you can expect to see join the video site:

• Full-length episodes of ABC primetime programs like Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Samantha Who, Scrubs, Private Practice and popular late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live
• Full-length episodes of hit ABC Family series like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Greek
• Popular series from ABC Daytime and SOAPnet like General Hospital and The View
• Classic series from ABC’s library like Hope and Faith, Less Than Perfect, Commander in Chief, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and Dancing with the Stars
• Select hit programs from Disney Channel like Wizards of Waverly Place and Phineas and Ferb which can be easily accessed from a new DISNEY location in the Channel section of Hulu.com
• Popular library titles from The Walt Disney Studios
• Short-form content including webisodes, sneak peeks and episode recaps from ABC Entertainment, ABC Family and SOAPnet

It’s not clear when everything will go up, but I can’t imagine there being any problems in closing the deal.

The DVDs go for $19.95 and come with a regular Amaray case and cover art. They ship within a week of ordering.

I see two releases that strike my immediate fancy. There’s Countdown (1968) with James Caan and Robert Duvall about the race with Russia to land a man on the moon. There’s also Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, a film that apparently ignores most of the plot from the Jules Verne novels and simply thrusts Nemo into a new story. Based on my interests, I hope more obscure and lost science fiction films make it onto this service. Those are the ones I’m probably most likely to jump on.

Watchmen

Finally the question of Watchmen‘s fate has been decided… out of court. The settlement won’t be publicly disclosed, but it’s said to involve a chunk of cash upfront along with a percentage of the film’s gross. If you’re not up on what this was all about, it boils down to Fox claiming it had a right to distribute the film based on an arrangement with the producer before he shopped it to Warner Bros. All that matters to me of course is that Warner Bros. is free to release the film as scheduled on March 6th. No more worries about an injunction against that.

Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros. released a joint statement:

Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox have resolved their dispute regarding the rights to the upcoming motion picture Watchmen in a confidential settlement. Warner Bros acknowledges that Fox acted in good faith in bringing its claims, which were asserted prior to the start of principal photography. Fox acknowledges that Warner Bros. acted in good faith in defending against those claims Warner Bros. and Fox, like all Watchmen fans, look forward with great anticipation to this film’s March 6 release in theatres.

Seven more weeks to go.

And it is up to the call center representatives to help retain customers. Autumn Daste, 30, who has worked at the call center for two months, managed to halt one potential defection recently when a call was routed to her from a polite but unhappy woman in New Jersey who had not received any movies recently.

Ms. Daste called up the member’s account information on her screen, including the type of service to which she subscribed, the frequency with which the member ordered movies, the number of months she had been a member, the number of times she had contacted Netflix in the past and a brief description of what those calls had been about.

Ms. Daste pointed out, ever so politely, that no movies had been sent to her because the woman’s queue was empty. “There’s nothing on your list that’s of interest to me,” said the caller, referring to the 80,000 movies Netflix carries.

Undeterred, Ms. Daste suggested they find a movie together. The woman mentioned one she had been wanting to see for a while, an Indian film titled “Fire.” Within seconds, Ms. Daste had it on her screen. She added it to the customer’s queue and told her she would be receiving it shortly. Customer pleased. Disaster averted.

Reading that passage made my brain spasm.

Can we stop pretending this man cares about cinema? Going through the article, it’s easy to see both the author and Harvey Weinstein give credit for any award wins solely to the latter man. Only three directors are named in the piece, contrasted to fourteen films. The man seems perfectly eager to give his campaigning the credit for the wins, except for the occasional hypocritical outburst about “leading with the movies” or “car[ing] deeply about these films.” He doesn’t hesitate to talk about the “time and concentration” it took to win past Academy Awards. No mention is made of the winning films’ crews and casts. His actions speak far louder than these hollow utterances however, as I’ll illustrate further later.

The piece segues from the preamble to the interview portion by asking if Harvey Weinstein still cares about regaining his “magic touch” when it comes to Oscars. The real question should be whether anyone wants him to regain it, because the Oscar campaigning he so pioneered over the years has resulted in a meta-contest over hype rather than film quality. A recent film even satirized the whole idea, with the actor characters in For Your Consideration learning that their performances may be awards-caliber in the midst of production. The whole awards system has been reduced to a competition in creating buzz. Even after Harvey Weinstein says winning Oscars is no longer important to him or his business model, Halbfinger writes that Weinstein’s “team of publicists would fight as fiercely as ever [for Bobby].” How comforting. Immediately following this line is a quote from Weinstein where he espouses that “it’s not about me, or the company. It’s about the individual movies.” If that’s the case, why have publicity campaigns? If it were about the movies, let the movies do the talking. All of the Academy voters receive screeners to view. They can watch the movies and decide what’s worth voting for on their own. Marketing can only serve to take those decisions away from the voter, by way of hammering opinions into their heads.

It’s easy for him to say he “care[s] deeply about these films” in the context of an article that doesn’t challenge a single one of his claims. Of course, it’s significantly more difficult to believe such a claim when you hear that he has signed a deal giving Blockbuster exclusive rentals of The Weinstein Company’s library. Granted, this is not legally enforceable because of the first-sale doctrine (in short, anyone could buy a product, like a movie, and then rent it out), but the Dallas Morning News reported the two companies would use their connections with DVD distributors to block sales to other rental houses. They also plan to put threatening messages on their DVDs to intimidate consumers into only renting Weinstein Company films from Blockbuster. This plan is now being contested in court. Notably, the paper says Blockbuster doesn’t question the law says. This deal is all about screwing normal people. If someone “care[d] deeply” about cinema, would they go out of their way to restrict the access to certain films? I think not.

Of course, blocking consumers from seeing films is nothing new for Harvey Weinstein. His tenure at Miramax is characterized by a policy of purchasing the rights to movies, particularly from Asian territories, and just sitting on them. Aside from the occasional revenue-producing release, there were two reasons for doing this. One, so that rival distributors could not pick up the rights. Two, by buying films and pushing their releases to future fiscal years, Mr. Weinstein managed to exploit a loophole in his contract that enabled him to inflate his annual bonus. For more on these accounting schemes, check out Slate’s “The Great Illusionist”. Miramax, under new management since October 2005, is still putting together theatrical and DVD releases of Asian films bought by Harvey Weinstein. One such film, Tears of the Black Tiger, will get a limited theatrical release beginning today after sitting in the Miramax vault for five years. Magnolia is now handling the release, after buying the rights earlier in ’06.

When Mr. Weinstein did release foreign films, they were controversial events in and of themselves due to his own tinkering. Take Iron Monkey. The film’s political messages were removed via clever subtitling, scenes were shortened and the soundtrack was changed. After all that, Quentin Tarantino’s name was plastered all over the film’s marketing. Tears of the Black Tiger also had its ending changed before it was shelved (but this doesn’t affect the Magnolia release). So much for respecting movies and letting them stand on their own.

Maybe it’s unfair to go off on this in response to Halbfinger and the NYT, but such an article serves no good for the film community. Maybe some heartless capitalists would appreciate it. Harvey Weinstein’s a figure that deserves a critical look, not a mushy profile that gives Weinstein himself the platform to set the record.

Addendum: It also goes without saying that there’s something fishy with this article never fully questioning what these awards even mean. When Harvey Weinstein is the champion of awards, what do they mean and how are they affecting the industry? Now that’d make for an interesting article, especially with the Golden Globes and Academy Awards just around the corner.