There's an interesting article by Sharon Waxman in the New York Times about the importance of the DVD market to Hollywood, which includes speculations that DVDs may be changing the content of movies.

LOS ANGELES, April 19 — The other day the chairman of 20th Century Fox, Jim Gianopulos, said he got a call from a lawyer friend. The friend said it was an anniversary of the firm and asked where he could get 100 DVD copies of the cult Fox movie "Office Space". The film made only $10 million at the box office but has become a hit on DVD. No one at Fox pretends to know why, but the film's success is another big drop in the river of DVD cash now flowing into Hollywood's coffers.

I'll tell you why. They thought it was crap. But the word of mouth disagreed.

No one in charge at Fox would have spotted Office Space. They are bosses. They were the ones being sent up. They should have asked their nephews and nieces in their twenties with crap jobs like the jobs of the people who work for them. (No use asking the people who work for them, because a truthful conversation in such circumstances would have been impossible. "Uuuuuuurrrrrrrrgggggghhhhh I'm gonna need you to come in Sunday to tell us what you think of this uuuurrrrrggghhhh movie … so if you could be here at 7am that would be uuuurrrrrgggghhhhhh great", or whatever is the equivalent in Hollywoodese.)

Not since the advent of the videocassette in the mid-1980's has the movie industry enjoyed such a windfall from a new product. And just as video caused a seismic shift two decades ago, the success of the DVD is altering priorities and the balance of power in the making of popular culture. And industry players, starting with the Writers Guild, are lining up to claim their share.

There's good cause. Between January and mid-March this year, Americans spent $1.78 billion at the box office. But in the same period they spent $4.8 billion – more than $3 billion more – to buy and rent DVD's and videocassettes.

Little wonder then that studio executives now calibrate the release dates of DVD's with the same care used for opening weekends, as seen by Miramax's strategic release of "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" a few days before the theatrical release of "Kill Bill: Vol. 2." (The DVD made $40 million its first day out.)

Studios now spend comparable amounts of money on DVD and theatrical marketing campaigns. Disney spent an estimated $50 million marketing the "Finding Nemo" DVD last year, said officials at Pixar, which made the film. It was money well spent. The DVD took in $431 million domestically, about $100 million more than the domestic box office. DVD has resuscitated canceled or nearly canceled television series like "The Family Guy" and "24," and has helped small art movies like "Donnie Darko" win rerelease in theaters. It is also beginning to affect the kinds of movies being made, as DVD revenues figure heavily in green-light decisions and are used as a perk to woo craft-conscious movie directors.

I think DVD is one of the reasons I'm starting to feel this way about movies.

The piece ends thus:

What no one knows is how long the windfall will last, whether DVD is a consumer bubble that will burst once the studios finish releasing the films and TV shows in their libraries, or whether it will remain a strong current in the entertainment industry profit stream.

"Right now the studios are making money hand over fist," said Mr. Lesher. "But in five years when you can download a movie as fast as a song, that will go away."

Mr. Gianopulos disagreed. DVD's will last "because of the uniqueness of that experience," he said. "It's no longer 'I saw that movie.' It's 'I saw that movie, now I'm going to see multiple dimensions of that movie.' That's why you want to own it."

I'm with Mr Gianopulos, provided they make them cheap enough. (I bought Office Space for £5.99.) For a fiver a go, I'll keep on buying these things. For more than a tenner, forget it, except if they are Whit Stillman movies.

For more erudite commentary on the above, await the comment(s) here of Michael Jennings, or read these Samizdata pieces.