BILLBOARD Reports, "Buyers Demand More Documentary DVDs"

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BILLBOARD Reports, "Buyers Demand More Documentary DVDs"

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New Video > Docurama > Docurama News > BILLBOARD Reports, "Buyers Demand More Documentary DVDs"

BILLBOARD Reports, "Buyers Demand More Documentary DVDs"

Documentaries rocked the box office last year. Now, the genre is making big waves on DVD. "You didn't use the 'd' word a few years ago if [documentaries] was the genre you were distributing," says Steve Savage, co-founder of the Docurama label. "It has gone from being the 'd' word to the buzz word. 2004 will be much hotter than 2003. Our catalog and new titles are on fire." Documentary DVDs are becoming hot commodities as a result of a booming special-interest DVD market and consumers' heightened attention to reality-based programming in theaters and on TV, industry executives say.

The genre is also attracting more interest from major video distributors this year. Long a leader in documentary DVDs, Docurama is now increasingly sharing the field with such majors as HBO Video, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment. The DVD format is further seen as a godsend to documentary filmmakers, who can more fully explore their films' topics through extra features. Nontheatrical DVD categories made great sales strides in 2003. The music- and TV-on-DVD genres were particularly strong as DVD-player hardware penetration reached more than half of U.S. households, according to the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG). Music DVD sales rose 102% to 17.2 million units in 2003, the DEG says (Billboard, Jan. 17). The special-interest category, which includes documentaries, accounted for 18.4% of all DVD releases in 2003, according to the weekly DVD Release Report. So far in 2004, special interest accounts for 15.7% of all DVD releases.

"TV on DVD is a huge and growing subcategory," says Cynthia Rhea, senior VP of marketing for HBO Video. "That opens up everybody's eyes to the notion that people are interested in a wide range of things, whether it's documentary or kid's programming. "DVD as a hardware phenomenon revitalized the consumer and got them interested in a rich diversity of home entertainment."

Docurama, for one, is responding by almost doubling its documentary DVD output this year. It will be releasing 36 titles, compared with 20 in 2003. Sales are expected to range from 5,000 units to hundreds of thousands of units per title. Individual projects are also receiving much advanced attention. Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, directors of the upcoming documentary project "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster," say they are already getting numerous DVD offers. "We have three studios offering us advances for the DVD rights," Berlinger says. "The fact that we can get multimillion dollar offers for DVD changes the whole distribution landscape." The film debuted at January's Sundance Film Festival (Billboard, Jan. 17). Such high interest can be directly linked to the theatrical success of documentaries last year. "Bowling for Columbine" grossed more than $20 million, according to MGM, and won last year's Academy Award for best documentary. "Winged Migration" was nominated for best documentary last year and grossed more than $10 million at the box office, according to Columbia TriStar.

"'Bowling for Columbine' definitely opened up people's interest in documentaries on DVD," says Julia Simmon, executive director for MGM Home Entertainment. "By the time the Oscars hit, 22 million saw that telecast and knew who [director] Michael Moore was and had heard of the film. We rode that wave onto DVD." Simmon would not comment on the title's DVD sales. "Bowling for Columbine" was one of amazon.com's year-end top 50 DVD sellers, according to DVD/video store group merchandising manager Stefan Pepe. "Winged Migration" also earned that distinction.

"It was fairly unique to have two such strong documentaries," Pepe says. "Documentaries seem to be a great fit with our customers." Documentary filmmaker Berlinger says that documentaries are holding interest in theaters and on consumers' home TV screens in part because of the reality-TV trend. "Reality TV has given people a thirst for nonfiction," he says. "It is a golden age for nonfiction filmmakers."

Majors have definitely been picking up on the trend. Already this year, some of the higher-profile documentaries have been released by Columbia TriStar ("Spellbound") and HBO ("Capturing the Friedmans"). "A rising tide raises all boats," Docurama co-founder Susan Margolin says. "The increasing interest in documentaries of course means that there will be more competition." Because documentaries focus on such varying topics, distributors can even up the ante by crafting targeted marketing campaigns. "Every single title has a logical point of distribution," Docurama's Savage notes. "If you do a film about the deaf community, you target them. We are, in essence, a niche marketing company. That positions us to succeed."

Documentary fans will also get a much broader experience of these films with the DVD format. Bill Siegel, director/producer of an Oscar-nominated documentary this year called "The Weather Underground," says, "The concept of extras generates its own interest in the film. "We will have several commentary tracks from the principals in the film [on 'The Weather Underground' DVD]. People will be enthralled by what they have to say and will get so much more information that wasn't in the theatrical version." Ultimately, the filmmakers themselves are furthering their careers through DVD. "The idea of a DVD coming out is lucrative because everyone makes money on them," Sinofsky says. "DVD sales present money for filmmakers who are often shut out."