Report: Universal and Disney may help U.S. theaters go digital
Universal Pictures and Walt Disney are close to finalizing a deal that would all but guarantee the digitizing of the nation's movie theaters, sources told CNET News.
Universal and Disney have agreed in principle to join a consortium of theater chains and motion picture studios that will finance the cost of modernizing movie houses, the sources said.
The sources were commenting on news of the deal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
For years, the high costs of outfitting theaters with digital projectors, servers, and other technology stymied modernization efforts. It was always believed that it would take the backing of four major studios to get a deal done.
News Corp., parent company of 20th Century Fox, and Viacom's Paramount Pictures have already signed on. The addition of Universal and Disney will help the consortium, called Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, reach its goal, according to the sources.
The Journal reported that only 5,000 of the 40,000 screens in the U.S. and Canada are outfitted with digital technology. It will take several years after Universal and Disney sign on, which could happen as early as this week, for the transition to be complete, the sources said.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
advocacy of piracy and socialized cinema all in one post?
in the real world, the cost of digital presentation could have been mitigated long ago by a different business model, but nobody wanted to listen. why? because the barrier to entry of 4000 prints of a film is so high, it only allows for major studios to offer wide releases. digital cinemas become open to everyone, with the ability to download films overnight, which means the distributor is far less important.
the private ownership of theaters has nothing to do with it. it's the cartel of middle-men in the business that control everyone and take most of the profits that are the roadblock.
- by tehrani625 September 8, 2008 10:18 PM PDT
- I am a 16 year old kid and I don't even think that they have wifi at my local theater. I would agree I think that the theaters are overpriced and deliver a very low quality product. I would also like to say that they might get a bit more bisness if they where a bit lax on who gets to see R movies. Because I am not going to the theaters for a while not because I went and saw a movie like that and got kicked out but because I went and saw a normal movie and it was about $30 that is the same as my internet for a month a few times the amount of time it would take me to download a pirated copy. I still would like to know how many people still go to the movies. Considering that movies are not making more money because more people are watching them they make more money because ticket prices are way up.
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