Why Charging $20 to Rent a Movie is Ludicrous
Due to the shut down of theaters across the country, movie studios have shifted release dates for new films and some are offering their new releases for digital rent. The problem is, some new films have up to a $20 rental fee.
Trolls World Tour is the most recent release to be released for rent on video on demand, available on Amazon, Apple, Vudu, and cable services. Across all of these platforms the rental agreement is similar. You have 30 days to watch your movie and a 24-48 rental period once you have started it. According to Apple TV guidelines, once you pay for a movie “ you can download this rental on one device and play it on another. This rental does not include iTunes Extras, which are only available with purchased HD movies.”
On the surface this seems like a good deal, but when we look back back to the stone age of Blockbuster, the cost to rent a movie for a night was anywhere from $2-$3 with .99 cents late fee. Redbox charges only $2 for an overnight rental. These cheap prices work great for renting because it allows you to view a new movie without the commitment of owning it outright.
Netflix cost $8.99 for the most basic subscription while Hulu’s most basic subscription cost $5.99, so the most basic access to streaming services cost less than a new release from theaters. The truth is, the reason people are willing to pay up to $10 for a ticket to the theater is for the experience.
Disney made Onward available to buy on video on demand before releasing it on Disney Plus, so it’s more logical to wait for it to be available on Disney Plus then to buy it digitally. All movies are destined to wind up on one streaming service or another, so it seems better to wait. If movie studios are concerned about losing profit, then they should either make their content available to own, or wait to release it until after the coronavirus pandemic has passed.
kfreed • Apr 23, 2021 at 7:17 AM
Pure greed/price gouging. They no longer have the overhead costs associated with running a film through a brick and mortar venue, so there’s no excuse for a $20.00 rental. Just don’t pay it. Personally, this angered me to the point that I’ve taken to giving all new releases with the extortionist rental rates a half-star review on the streaming services we use. We’re watching the DVD collection we’ve purchased over the years (you know, physical copies of films we can watch as many times as we like). Not to mention, they’re trying to pretend that it’s “worth it” for a “family” to pay for a $20.00 rental during COVID because it’s less expensive than going to the theater – as if that were ever a thing to drag an entire family to the movies on a regular basis. Besides which, during a pandemic we’re not actually seeing our families for fear of infecting them. We can wait for the price to come down significantly or we can go do/watch something else. We won’t drop dead if we don’t see the latest idiotic flick.