Pick A Flick, Choose Your Own Ending
There's a new product out on the market called an interactive DVD. As People magazine editor at large and The Early Show contributor Jess Cagle reports, you no longer have to just sit there and accept what the filmmaker gives you — you can actually have a say in what happens next.
If you saw the teen horror flick "Final Destination 3" earlier this year, you might have wanted to scream at those unsuspecting teenagers, "Don't get on that roller coaster!" Well, now your cries will no longer go unheeded. In the new DVD for the movie, the fateful moments are in your hands.
You control the character's destinies with a click of your remote control. When a menu appears, viewers get to chose tails or heads.
"The kids get off the ride. They never get killed. The movie ends in 20 minutes!" explains director James Wong.
When "Final Destination 3" was in production, New Line Cinema gave director and co-writer James Wong an extra $750,000 to film alternative scenes for the DVD. Viewers make choices throughout the movie, even getting a chance to save one character's life.
"It works best with a movie that is like 'Final Destination,' where it's more episodic in nature," says Wong. "Most movies don't lend themselves to this because if you change one thing, it alters the path of the whole movie."
"It's an economic balancing act for the studio. How much does it cost to create those features, versus how many units do they really sell because of them?" says Mary Magiera from "Video Business Magazine."
At least one other studio is taking the leap into interactive DVDs. Goldhil Entertainment has turned the popular book series "Choose Your Own Adventure" into an animated movie, where your kids can use the remote control to create eleven different storylines. A similar DVD starring the "Bratz" dolls comes out Tuesday.
"There's definite potential in the children's market. And then also in what people call the 'early adopters,' people who love to have the newest technology and the newest gadgets and do the coolest things," says Magiera.
DVD sales have been relatively flat across the industry. Studio executives hope that interactive DVDs could spark higher sales but the folks behind "Final Destination 3" are still taking a "wait and see" attitude.
"We wanted to do one first, to see how it would work out, see how audiences would respond to it. And then, see what would be next for us," says Mike Mulvihill from New Line Cinema.
New technologies allow more and more information to be put on DVDs, making it easier to give viewers more scenes to choose from.
And Cagle explains there are other ways we can expect interactive options to be used: up next from New Line Cinema is an Interactive version of the classic "Nightmare on Elm Street." While you're watching the movie, you'll be able to choose an option to see how scenes and special effects were created.