SF Signal: Cinematic Titanic releases The Oozing Skull

Cinematic Titanic releases The Oozing Skull

Cinematic Titanic, the new brainchild of the comic genuises who originally gave us Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K), released its first DVD a couple of days back, just in time to save us a long, cold, hard, icy, dark, cold, winter. Pop the little bundle of warmth titled The Oozing Skull onto your viewing device-of-choice and look forward to the funny (I myself have a mega-home-theatre that hoovers so much electricity that every time I power it up, Al Gore cries.). I find it most encouraging that they recorded it in front of a live audience and discussed how much that improved the performance (if only I were an employee of ILM and got to see it live!)

As much as I love the old MST3K days, this TITANIC project simply costs too much. A burned DVD in a sleeve for $15? Come on. I would consider paying $10-$12 for a pressed DVD in a substantial case with extras. I buy every PIXAR movie for about that much. I won't be buying this project at this price.

I predict piracy will damage sales to the point at which Joel and company will throw in the towel early. There won't even be 12 episodes of CINEMATIC TITANIC completed. A lower price would have been so much more realistic. If they sold 10,000 copies at $8, each writer/performer might clear a couple thousand an episode.

That's not great show-biz money, but aside from Joel it's probably more than the other people involved have been making lately.

Posted by VapoRub on Thursday December 27, 2007 at 1:51 PM

I believe that they initially intended for most sales to be based on Internet downloads, if you go by the statements that were made earlier in the year. That makes sense to me because I think they have a pretty niche product and digital downloads are a way to make it happen without a traditional publisher (which they obviously lack.)

But in the comments about this DVD release, they indicated that not only wouldn't they be able to procure the digital download rights until spring, but that a survey told them that 4 out of 5 readers preferred a DVD. This surprises me and has me concerned about the long term viability. Without a retail channel, I don't see DVD sales working out.

I have no idea how much they would be charging for a downloadable version though it is probably close to $15. Given that they are working without a major producer or a publisher I bet they have their own money on the line here. Until they know how big the audience is, I bet they are worried about getting a return on the investment. The comments also seem to say they are going to make the content 'download to burn' rather than 'download to watch' and that I also feel is a mistake. I don't mean that I want it loaded up with a ton of DRM, but I'd err on the side of more accessibility versus less. Forcing people to burn a DVD seems a little restrictive.

Posted by scottsh on Thursday December 27, 2007 at 3:11 PM

I can't believe all the himmin' and hawin' over a couple bucks!

It's the law of supply and demand. 15 bucks is a fair price to pay for something that is completely CREATOR DRIVEN. That's right -- no studio, no network, no distributor is telling these guys what to do. They're calling their own shots and most likely putting something out fans of MST3K are going to like.

Also, the law of supply and demand comes into play here. This is something starting off small. Something special. No one really knows about this yet except diehard MST3K fans...and the only way to see this is to buy the DVD. It's not on Netflix or at your local Blockbuster yet. Because of this one should expect to pay a little more than a mass-released Pixar movie that already made its money back ten-fold in the box office before even coming to video.

I've been a fan of what these guys do for, wow - almost 18 years now! Getting my hands on this DVD is like old days paying 20 bucks for a crappy VHS dub of the Star Wars Holiday Special, or $25 for a crappy "import" CD of my favorite band just get get one rare track.

The bottom line: If you want something that's hard to get, then most likely you will be willing to pay a little more for it.

If you're a fan that's dying to see something new from these guys, then $15 bucks a month ain't much after all. I've spent more money on stupider things.

I think these guys are charging a fair price. It will be even cheaper once downloading becomes available (there was a download-rights issue for this film preventing this) because there will be no added cost for burning DVD's or shipping them.

I liken my purchase to when I buy a slightly over-priced band's CD or t-shirt at a show. Sure I could go to Best Buy and get a "real CD" for $9.99, then again I wouldn't be directly helping some talented creatives doing something cool outside of the corporate machine.

Posted by Mr. Negative on Thursday January 03, 2008 at 11:42 PM

Yeah. Oh, boohoo, I don't want to pay $15 to own a copy of a new project by the MST3000 creators. What cheapskates. You act as if a small group like Joel and the Crew has the resources of Disney (hey you brought up Pixar as if that is a sane comparison to CT). Disney charges $25 - $30 for their DVDs for the first few years anyway, so your whole $10 to $12 thing is just plain BS. The cheapest I've ever seen a non-used copy of a Pixar movie for was $20 on sale, and that was A Bug's Life, which is hardly a new film. And they have the resources to print literally millions of copies at once, which cuts their costs immensely. Do you think CT is even close to being able to do something like that? If so you are incredibly naive. I am proud to put up $15 sight unseen to support Joel and the crew with this first release, and if it is as enjoyable as it looks to be from the teaser I think I will have little problem at all buying each episode that follows. I have a feeling that the people who won't order this because it costs $15 are in the very tiny minority, so it wouldn't make sense for them to undercut themselves and not make enough money to sustain the project. I'm also not surprised at all that most people want a premade DVD (burned or not). Not many people are able to conveniently download huge 4.5 gig files, or even to burn their own DVD's, and probably wouldn't want to download a lesser quality Divx video version which most of them wouldn't be able to watch on their TV's anyway. I actually can do all of that myself, and even I would prefer to have a copy sent to me with artwork on the disc. And I'm looking more and more forward to not having a case and being able to create my own cover art for the DVD. I might even eventually put up a website with my covers for others to download and print out for their cases. I can that as a big online fan community in the future if CT keeps going for a while. That is if I'm not wrong, and their actually are enough cheapskates like you who kill it because they can't put out a measly $15 to support it. Especially if they are big enough lowlifes to pirate it instead of buying it.

Also as a correction to this article, they didn't tape this episode live (though they might very well have taped the live version for posterity), and in fact they already had taped the studio version before doing the live performance. What they did was go back and retape the studio version once again after performing it live. Basically in the live performance they saw how the audience reacted to the show, and used that as a way to alter and improve things for the DVD released version that they tape in front of a green screen in a studio. I have a feeling that this may become standard, and in the future they might choose to do a live performance of each show just before taping it in order to get the same feedback and make the DVD version better. They did imply that live performances will likely be a big part of CT.

Posted by Cornjob on Friday January 11, 2008 at 11:53 AM