Tug of war growing over where movies debut

It's set in Las Vegas. It was filmed in Las Vegas. But when "Lay the Favorite" opens Friday, you won't be able to see it in a single Las Vegas movie theater.

Unless you bring your iPad.

The sports-gambling comedy is among the growing number of independent movies looking to turn the traditional Hollywood business model on its head by debuting through video on demand either the same day or, in many cases, before they open in theaters.

On Friday, "Lay the Favorite" will be available everywhere but theaters - via iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, Xbox and Playstation, as well as cable TV providers.

"It's a benefit for aficionados of film. ... Now you can watch them in the comfort of your own home and have a wider selection of content" on your TV than at the multiplex, says Juergen Barbusca, communications manager for Cox-Las Vegas. "It's certainly advantageous for lovers of the independent film genre."

These aren't the cheap, schlocky cash grabs that once made cinephiles cringe at the mere mention of the words "direct to video."

Among recent VOD premieres, the thriller "Arbitrage" starred Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, while the comedy "Butter" featured Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman and Olivia Wilde.

The financial drama "Margin Call" debuted on VOD the day it hit theaters last fall and went on to earn an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay.

In August, the Kirsten Dunst-led bridal comedy "Bachelorette" became the first film to top the iTunes movie chart before its theatrical release.

"Lay the Favorite," meanwhile, was directed by Stephen Frears ("The Queen," "High Fidelity") and counts Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn and Catherine Zeta-Jones among its cast.

The Weinstein Co. purchased the comedy at January's Sundance Film Festival for Radius-TWC, the division it formed last year to focus on alternative release strategies.

Radius, which also released "Bachelorette" and "Butter," declined to make anyone available for this story. But its strategy seems to boil down to economics.

By describing a movie as a pre-theatrical release, the company can justify its rental fee of $9.99. That's roughly the price of a movie ticket, yet twice the cost of renting a Hollywood blockbuster.

And with the expenses involved in marketing a small movie continuing to rise, the thinking is that when viewers discover a movie on VOD, word of mouth could help drive interest in it once it hits theaters.

Assuming it ever does.

"As far as the release of a new movie, if they choose to go the home-video route, then we will not show it on our screens," says Russ Nunley, vice president of marketing and communications for Regal Entertainment Group. The nation's largest theater chain, Regal operates 10 valley theaters, including Village Square, one of two traditional local outlets for smaller movies.

Cinemark, the nation's third-largest chain, takes the same stance with the six local multiplexes it operates under the Century banner, including the Suncoast, the other theater that would have been a likely home for "Lay the Favorite."

Rave Motion Pictures, which operates the theaters at Town Square, and Galaxy Theatres, which runs the screens at the Cannery and is renovating the former Green Valley 8 cinema, stand in unison.

"If something is being released on video on demand, premium video on demand, whatever they want to call it these days, we don't want to play it in the theater at the same time," Galaxy President Rafe Cohen says.

The only local cinema that has cooperated with this new strategy has been Brenden Theatres at the Palms, and even that was done reluctantly.

"As a general rule, I'm not thrilled about that sort of thing," says Bruce Coleman, executive vice president of Brenden.

The Palms location recently gave "Bachelorette" and "Butter" brief runs. But Coleman stresses those decisions involved several mitigating factors, including his having a screen available, getting the right deal from the movie's distributors and the fact that "Bachelorette," which opened first, was receiving tremendous amounts of buzz.

Given the crush of big holiday movies, he doesn't figure to have any open screens when "Lay the Favorite" becomes available to theaters Dec. 7.

"I wouldn't look to see me doing it on a regular basis," he adds of hosting VOD premieres. "You may have seen the last of it for a while."

By rejecting this new approach, the theater companies are sacrificing a little income now to ensure their survival in the long run.

It's similar to last October, when several chains banded together and threatened to boycott the Ben Stiller-Eddie Murphy comedy "Tower Heist" over Universal's plan to test a new type of VOD. Under the tryout, the studio would have let customers in Portland, Ore., and Atlanta pay $60 to rent the movie three weeks after it debuted in theaters. Theater companies are fiercely protective of the traditional 90-day window between a movie's theatrical and video releases.

Universal eventually abandoned that plan - for now - but the theater chains are treating this latest incursion as a similar threat to their existence.

With movie admissions already on the decline - according to the National Association of Theater Owners, the number of tickets sold dropped in 2011 for the second straight year and the seventh time in the past decade - they simply can't risk giving movie fans one more reason to stay home.

But there's another, more romantic notion in play.

"We think there's something special about viewing a movie in a communal experience, and hearing the laughter of hundreds of strangers with you to add to your enjoyment of a comedy, or to feel the tension in the air with a crowd full of people enthralled in the suspense that they see on the screen," Regal's Nunley says. "That's a different experience than you see while watching on your iPad, your home theater, your iPhone."

Or, as Galaxy's Cohen puts it: "I want Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise to stay as movie stars and not to be TV stars."

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@review journal.com or 702-380-4567.