what implications for des, page-20

Be very careful. DES is walking a tightrope. I hate to keep harping on it, but look at their theatrical acquisitions, this is where a lot of money has been invested and will continue to be invested. DES have no experience in this area and there are no real controls in place. The money they have paid for a number of films is questionable, now they could get lucky and hit one out of the park, in which case everybody will be smiling. In all honesty though, the odds of that happening are like winning the lottery. The experience is the problem, there is no track record of management doing a good job in theatrical acquisitions previously, simply put, management is flying by the seat of their pants and trying to pick winners without really knowing the implications of what they are doing. As highlighted before BRATZ was a failure, add to this list, THE ASTRONAUTS FARMER, PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION and others that have already seen a busted theatrical result and poor DVD sales. Let's take into account unreleased films: PENELOPE(start up distributor releasing in the USA, don't hold much hope), THE CHAOS THEORY (no US distributor attached, don't hold much hope), AUGUST RUSH ( okay results in the US, might be a problem locally), THE MUTANT CHRONICLES (as yet, no US distributor attached), I could continue, but what this adds up to is a huge risk of capital. A lot of these films are costing between US$500k and US$1m, now to relase theatrically, they need another AUD$500k-1m+. A couple of failures will hurt DES, it is just not showing up on the radar yet. Tread carefully.