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Friday
13Nov2009

'Death Race' DVD Prequel Gets the Green Light

DateFriday, November 13, 2009 at 9:41AM
The home video market, as we know, is hurting. That wasn't always the case, and in fact, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the ballooning budgets in Hollywood this decade could be a direct result of DVD sales that greatly exceed the studios' theatrical returns, but with a much smaller total investment. Put another way, DVD sales were so good for a while that you could make a $150 million movie and trust that through domestic and foreign box office, TV rights, and DVD sales, you would turn a healthy profit more often than not.

But those days, if not over, are certainly pining for the fjords. After a $25 billion year in 2004, sales fell to $23.7 billion in 2007, to $22.4 billion last year, and if 2009 projections are correct, down to about $21 billion this year. That's still a lot of money, but it's dropping precipitously, down almost 20% in five years. However, we're still seeing a rise in direct-to-DVD titles, most of them spin-offs of successful or marginally successful films. It follows that if a movie was an enormous hit theatrically, a DVD-only sequel is missing the boat.

That brings us to Death Race, the Paul W.S. Anderson remake from 2008, which failed to make back its budget in the US, but was at least moderately profitable overseas. However, it didn't rank among the top 50 DVDs of the year, selling less than $25 million worth of product, so why a new direct-to-DVD prequel has been given the go-ahead is strange to me.

Let's assume for the moment that the prequel - curiously called Death Race 2 - has a $10 million budget. If it doesn't have the theatrical tie-in, how can it possibly make that $10 million back based on the sales of the first one? It won't have Jason Statham, it won't have the "I didn't get to see that when it was in theaters" business, and it certainly won't have the same advertising muscle behind it.

The script comes to us courtesy of Tony Giglio, a second unit director on Anderswon's Resident Evil: Afterlife, and according to Shock Till You Drop, once that film is completed, Anderson and his Impact Pictures team will turn their attention to the Death Race prequel. Neither Anderson nor Giglio will direct.

So how does Universal sell this to anyone? You got me. The studio has been a leader in this DVD-only market (think all those American Pie spin-offs), so I guess they know what they're doing. But they're not exactly building on big brand name recognition in this instance and without the equivalent of a Eugene Levy walk-on, there doesn't seem to be much carryover from one film to the next.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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