DVD Price Wars, Continued

Woe is me...

The West Wing's price for the complete season has dropped to $114.00.

I ordered it on Saturday for much more (Yes, I got it for $118, but that was after applying a $25 coupon.)

I feel so used.

I mean, I said in comments below that I didn't mind if the price drops. But for pity's sake, don't change it while my disks are en route...

(Alanna, don't read this line.) If anyone cares, the complete Sex and the City is $99.

Women in Film

As we continue this Week of Wonder, in which a film about women actually made a lot of money, Shakesville's Question of the Day is generating quite a list of films carried by female leads here.

(The link to the NY Times article includes an hour-long video interview with Sarah Jessica Parker. I haven't had time to watch it all yet.)

I Told You So

Women pump up 'Sex and the City' to $55.7 million opening

("Pump up." Get it? Ha-ha.)

The women have spoken — with their designer wallets.

Female moviegoers, many of them decked out as their favorite Sex and the City character, helped drive the adaptation of the popular HBO show to a stunning $55.7 million this weekend, according to studio estimates from box office tracking firm Nielsen EDI.

The debut is nearly twice the projections of many analysts, who assumed the movie's R rating and cable TV fan base would limit it to a $30 million opening.

'Sex and City' beats 'Indy' for top box-office draw

"Sex and the City," a release from Time Warner Inc.'s New Line unit, not only prompted thousands of Cosmopolitan-fueled cocktail parties focused on its Friday debut, it also made nearly $27 million in its first day in theaters, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

It went on to rake in more than $17 million on Saturday and is expected to make more than $11 million on Sunday, Dergarabedian said. That's a surprise, considering the movie was expected to make somewhere around $35 million to $40 million for the entire weekend. "Sex and the City went off the air in 2004.

"We should never underestimate the clout of the female audience and the power of 'Sex and the City,'" Dergarabedian said. "This is the first real surprise of the summer."

Only to you and your ilk, sir.

Prior to Friday, [online ticket seller] Fandango reported that a survey of "Sex and the City" ticket buyers showed that 80% of all purchasers planned to attend a party devoted to the movie, and two-thirds planned to have Cosmopolitans, the signature drink of the television series' characters.

There's your financial stimulus. On Tuesday, Alanna and I will see the film and will also add to the economy by having a fabulous meal, but I'm not so sure about the Cosmos. (Well, I can only speak for myself.)

'Sex and the City': A Big Box Office Win

[T]hat $55.7 mil premiere is one for the history books. It is by far the best of all time for a romantic comedy, and it's also tops for a TV adaptation. It ranks as the No. 5 opening for an R-rated film (following those for a bunch of man-baiting movies like 300 and Hannibal). And when final weekend figures come out on Monday, it could be the fifth-top debut ever for New Line...

I told you so. Not that anyone who hangs around here was questioning my powers of observation. But it still feels really, really good to say.

I'm Wearing This

(Not actually Bitty, unfortunately.)

When Alanna and I go to see Sex and the City next week, I'll be wearing this, although I won't look quite so fabulous in it.


Just so you all know.

Oh, Noes! A Girly Film!!

"There's no getting around that this is a film oriented to women and gay men...It will be very hard to get past that, especially with a lot of testosterone-driven films out there this summer."

Earlier today I wrote this post, put it up for about 10 minutes, and pulled it down. My original discussion MIGHT have been a little unkind to he who uttered those words, one movie analyst named Jeff Bock of Reel Source (for which I can find no website), because I rained all my sarcasm down on his head. Bock's words appear in an AP article that asks the musical question, "Can women alone make 'Sex and the City' a hit?" Bock didn't write the piece, doesn't deserve all the blame, and may well have been taken out of context. (Setting the piece's title and Bock's quote aside, the article seems to be suggesting that interest in the film is wide and deep. In other words, here we seem to have another media-created controversy where none otherwise exists.) Regardless of where or how the idea originated, the suggestion offered in Bock's words set me off. So here I go, slightly revised:

Understandably, Sex and the City is not a film that will appeal to most men. And while Bock didn't write the whole piece and may well have been quoted out of context, he seems to be suggesting that a film that doesn't appeal to men (he oddly calls this film a "paternity test") couldn't possibly make money.

If Bock has not been taken out of context, I'm not sure what, exactly, it is we need to "get around" or "get past" besides nineteenth-century notions about women and agency. Bock appears not to offer his analysis based on anything particularly concrete, such as the enormous following the HBO series had in its original run and continues to have on TBS even in its eviscerated (cleaned up) state, or the clamor for this film that began before the series even ended, or the DVD sales -- currently the 6-season box set (not the "luxury package") is #26 in DVD on Amazon, an interestingly high stat considering that many fans bought the series long ago. The point Bock seems to be making is based on the faulty premise that without men in the seats, movies can't make money. Yet the series has been hand-over-fisting it for years, despite its girly nature.

Anyway, any Hollywood accountant worth her billing hours knows that the box office, which yes, may fall off after the first weeks as is true of many films, is only a small part of the story: it's a film's afterlife that often brings the windfall, and the Sex DVD, which I predict will be released just in time for holiday gift-giving, will bring that windfall.

I think that Bock is equating "hit" with "competition," as in "who makes the most money?" not "who makes money?" (What a testosterone-driven idea!) However, my analysis, based on the excitement I know exists around the film is this: the backers of this film will not regret their investment.

Here's an idea that Bock apparently hasn't factored in: Sex and the City will appeal to many people who have no interest whatsoever in "testosterone-driven films," people whose money would otherwise remain tucked away in their checking accounts. People who are women.

I know two of those people well, and we've already made our girly-date to go see the film on June 3.

(For another take-down on this article, see Melissa at Shakesville.)

(Another SATC analysis, although not based on this article, comes from Philosophy Factory, who is currently vacationing in a different city, Sin City.)