Mark Cuban asks how to get people to go to the movies:

Only HDNet takes more time out my day than trying to solve this problem. Its the holy grail of the movie business. How do you get people out of the house to see your movie without spending a fortune. How can you convince 5 million people to give up their weekend and go to a theater to see a specific movie without spending 60mm dollars.

It's the wrong question, so most of the answers he gets are going to be wrong. The golden age of movies has passed. That doesn't mean that theaters are dead, anymore than TV meant that radio was dead. However, it does mean that the business is going to change.

The time between a theatrical release and the DVD release has been shrinking for awhile now. Why not eliminate it altogether? Sell DVDs at the theater, and make them available for retail buy the day after release? Large TVs and good home sound systems are here to stay, and you can pause the movie when the phone rings. Additionally, you don't need to worry about the ill mannered people 4 rows back who won't shut up.

The right answer is to accept reality - you aren't going to get crowds to the movies in the same kinds of large numbers as you have been able to. Not in a world filled with game consoles, home theaters, and DVRs. The real winner is going to be the company that sets up a commercial Bittorrent (or bittorrent like) system to stream movies to customers. Make it simple, and make it inexpensive. Skip the DRM, because the pirates will break it in minutes, and all you'll really do is irritate the paying customers. Offer one-off buys, but also go straight after NetFlix with a decent subscription model. Trying to get people to the theater is fighting yesterday's war. I'd suggest trying to fight elsewhere.

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