On February 10 2017, audiences around the world will be sitting down in cinemas to watch the much anticipated LEGO: Batman movie. 48 days later, Australians can do the same. Village Roadshow is repeating history, making the same mistake it made with The LEGO Movie. A five million dollar mistake. A mistake co-CEO Graham Burke said the distributor would not be making again. @BrickingAround LEGO Batman will be released in Australia on 30th March, 2017. — Roadshow Films (@RoadshowFilms) December 5, 2016 Piracy of The LEGO Movie cost Village Roadshow "somewhere between $3.5 and $5 million in sales" Burke revealed at a government-led Copyright Forum back in September 2014. "We made one hell of a mistake with LEGO," Burke said of the decision to delay The LEGO Movie's release in Australia by 54 days. "We'll now make all our movies day in date with the US. I know 20th Century Fox are and Universal are too." Adding insult to injury both films were created here by Animal Logic, and the CEO Zareh Nalbandian has spoken out about piracy in the past, expressing a wish to teach kids about the impacts of piracy on creators before they become teenagers and stop caring.
So why, two years later, is this happening again? Expect to hear reasons like "school holidays" and "maximising audiences" being floated, but we've reached out to Village Roadshow for an official comment.VideoImageWatch the trailer for the Lego Batman movie. IT APPEARS that even a $5 million mistake wasn’t enough to make Village Roadshow reconsider its global release date for films. In 2014, Australian audiences got a cinematic release of The Lego Movie 54 days after it had screened in the US.Aussies decided they didn’t want to wait almost two months to see the film, so they turned to piracy — a common practice for most delayed content.With The Lego Movie on course to become the most pirated release of 2014, Village Roadshow chief executive Graham Burke acknowledged the costly mistake.“We estimate that (piracy of) The Lego Movie cost somewhere between $3.5 million and $5 million in sales,” he said, reportedThe Australian.“It was doubly painful because Lego was produced in Australia.
Piracy not only impacts profits, but if unchecked will impede new business models and growth.”Mr Burke went on to say that Village Roadshow would make an effort to distribute all major films at the same time as the US release, in an attempt to combat rampant online piracy.At least that’s what he said.@BrickingAround LEGO Batman will be released in Australia on 30th March, 2017.— Roadshow Films (@RoadshowFilms) December 5, 2016 This week Village Roadshow announced on Twitter that Australia would be getting Lego: Batman movie on March 30, 2017. This would be great if it wasn’t some 48 days later than the February 10 release date for the US.While a slightly shorter period, the logic behind repeating history and delaying the release is yet to be seen.Maybe Village Roadshow is just hoping really hard that Aussies will wait for the release instead of pirating the film.Unfortunately, the likelihood of this happening is slim to none..au has reached out to Village Roadshow for comment regarding the delay.
On February 10 2017, audiences around the world will be sitting down in cinemas to watch the much anticipated LEGO: Batman movie. 48 days later, Australians can do the same. Everything is not awesome.The reason we have to wait for The Lego Batman movieVideoImageWatch a film clip from "The LEGO Batman Movie," starring the voices of Will Arnett, Michael Cera, and Rosario Dawson. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures AUSTRALIAN moviegoers were left with a bitter, yet familiar, taste in their mouth in December when the distributor of the The Lego Batman movie announced it would have a delayed release date, premiering Down Under more than six weeks after it hits US cinemas. The decision was not only rankling for fans but seemed like it went against all common sense.The same thing happened with the hugely popular original Lego Movie which was released in Australia 54 days after the US — with disastrous results.Having to wait long periods for movies and TV shows to become available in Australia is an often cited reason for high rates of illegal piracy.
Back in 2014 when the Lego movie was trending to become the most illegally downloaded film of the year, Graham Burke the chief executive of Village Roadshow — who own the distribution rights — said the high level of piracy cost the company somewhere between $3.5 million and $5 million in sales.At the time he said that Village Roadshow would make an effort to distribute all major films at the same time as the US release, in an attempt to combat rampant online piracy.So naturally, fans were left a little flummoxed when it was announced that they would have to wait an extra 48 days for the Lego sequel, which was released in the US last week.According to the Village Roadshow CEO, “99 per cent” of the films distributed by the company line up with the US release date. But in this instance, they believe the loss of sales due to piracy will not outweigh the boon of the school holidays when Aussie families fork out at the box office.Speaking to CNet, Mr Burke said it was a “difficult judgment call” to release the movie in Australia more than six weeks after the US in order to line up with the school holidays.
“Yes, we will lose a lot to piracy, but the other side of the coin is the film is available when the audience that goes to these sort of films wants to see it,” he said.“When certain films go out in non-holiday periods, our audiences get very cross because the kids are not available to take them.”Despite being developed by local animation studio Animal Logic in Sydney’s Fox Studios, The Lego Batman movie will released in 42 other countries before Australian viewers will get their chance.The decision by the rights holders provides a stark contrast to comments made by Mr Burke in front of an audience at the Online Copyright Infringement Forum in 2014.“We made one hell of a mistake (with the Lego Movie),” he said. “We held it for a holiday period, it was a disaster. It caused it to be pirated very widely.”Doing it again is certainly a gamble and we’ll have to wait until March 30, when it hits Australian cinemas, to see if it pays off.Mr Burke told CNet that so far, the company had only received some 14 e-mails from fans “expressing their disappointment.”“