When a movie opened - if you lived in New York, you would see it at Radio City Music Hall where it would play a couple of weeks, and then you moved on to the next movie. Now you can see it the rest of your life - it's going to be on Netflix and DVD.
Not all movies are movies you want to spend $14 on - and not all movies are movies you want to spend $10 on for ultra VOD, or even $6.99 on renting.
I sold Blockbuster because I saw what was coming: the satellite dish, technology that would make the business obsolete in a few years. Why would people go to a store for a video and then have to return it when they had a dish?
Actors wait tables, directors work at video stores.
My manager called me and said, 'Hey, there's a series at Neflix.' I'm like, 'Netflix? Oh, boy.' At that time, it was just a strange thing to hear. It's like going, 'There's a series at Blockbuster.'
I'm not Blockbuster Boy.
I'm going to miss Blockbuster. I'm gonna miss being CEO and all that stuff. We had an atmosphere where everybody was happy. When people make money, they're happy.
Comparing Apple to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges, especially if the oranges made so many mistakes that people stopped eating oranges and just went back to Blockbuster.
You know, when we were kids, we had to go to a theater to see a movie. And then television came in and you had to wait until midnight to see the one you wanted to see. Now, all you've got to do is go to a store and buy it and you can watch it whenever you want!
In high school, I worked at The Video Room in Oakland, California. It had the largest selection of laser discs in the Bay Area. One guy owned all of them.
I don't even like DVDs. Honest to God, in my lifetime, I might have rented a dozen DVDs, literally gone into a video store and rented a dozen DVDs in my lifetime, because I don't like to see movies that way. I like to see them on the big screen.
Why not pick up the new full-length motion picture at the corner drugstore and then run it through one's home TV receiver?
I'm a video store guy. I like thumbing through things and holding them.
At one point, I got to work as an assistant for Martin Scorsese: He wanted to know about all the films coming out, so I would make clippings and put it all in a big scrapbook for him. I was also in charge of his video library - it was like a little video store, and his friends and colleagues would come and borrow films.
I was 11 or 12 years old when I first saw 'Reservoir Dogs.' I remember after I saw that film, I kept renting it from the video store because I wanted all of my friends to see it.
I have a video store next to my apartment in Paris, and they still have most of their videos on VHS. A lot of people think Be Kind Rewind is set in the past because they just wipe this reality out of their head, but it is true that there are a lot of movies that don't exist on DVD. But I'm not like a big movie buff.
I tried to - I wanted to work at Blockbuster.
I was lucky because I used to live right next to a video-rental store. I used to spend so much time watching films. So I've seen a lot. I used to watch 'Dynasty' and 'Dallas' and have seen every kind of film. I've been influenced by everything I've seen.
I got the idea for Netflix after my company was acquired. I had a big late fee for Apollo 13. It was six weeks late and I owed the video store $40. I had misplaced the cassette. It was all my fault.
I have to return some videotapes
The kids have all seen it on DVD or videotape.
When I was a teenager there was no video in my country. Betamax came to Mexico very slowly.
Every time you get a movie, you get a medical. So you know, you know you're alright for a couple of weeks.
I'm not going to go to the local theater to spend $12... when I can get a screening copy of a film. I don't get screeners myself, but I can borrow from my friends or go to their house to watch.
More teenagers go to movies or rent a tape of a movie than sit down and watch sitcoms on television.
