Variety is reporting that with the rising costs of DVD Special Features, Studios may just abandon them together.According to Variety,Many video vets believe such extra material could start to disappear thanks to escalating costs and demands by talent and guilds. Studios are balking at new fees for script use and star participation, even as overall DVD sales surge and consumersembrace “special edition” packages.
Variety’s sister publication Video Premieres reports this month that Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid $75,000 for audio commentary and other input on Artisan’s recent “Total Recall” disc. And while that may be a pittance compared with the $30million he’s set to earn for “Terminator 3,” it exceeds the entire production budget for all extra material on many special editions.Until recently, directors and others have mostly agreed to sit at no charge for DVD interviews or commentaries to help promote the movie or for purely nostalgic or personal interests.Lately, though, producers and studios are reporting an increasing number of demands for payment by stars for audio commentaries and interviews. At least two commanded payments of $10,000each for one recent DVD release.This year’s Writers Guild of America pact withproducers and studios. It calls for a mandatory $5,000 fee paid to writers for every movie released on DVD — $250,000 has been collected since May — and requires that the writer be included in some fashion in any special edition featuring thedirector.Concerned about varying fees attached to ever-changing definitions of what constitutes a promotional extension of a movie vs. a newly produced program, several studios, including MGM and Universal, are ordering producers to limit documentaries to 30 minutes or less. New restrictions from the music industry haveeliminated alternate audio tracks for the isolated film score. Others argue that talent should consider DVD extras a form of promotion, not unlike a talk show appearance. Some believe that unless the talent or extra element is crucial to the DVD, studios will simply eliminate those features in favor of less costly or troublesome ones. Indeed, studios don’t lack for filler material. They can always lard discs with extras that don’t require new production, such as trailers, interviews from electronic press kits and behind-the-scenes TVfeaturettes. Which basically translates into, special feature DVDs will consists of those cheesy HBO making of specials and a few trailers if we’re “”lucky””.Canned material is already starting to dominate DVDs, such as Universal’s “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” That disc became one of the fastest-selling DVDs ever without an audio commentary and few exclusive bonuses. Yeah and that was such a “”fantastic”” disk.So what have we learned here kiddies? That all it takes is for one greedy, overpaid, sob, to f*** it up for the rest of us.