Internet rumors abound that the DVD rental giant Netflix, pulled from it’s streaming catalogue The Bodyguard (1992), just to boost it’s DVD sales.
On the heels of the passing of singer Whitney Houston, executives never lose sight on how to make a buck.
Within hours of the confirmation of Diva’s death, her songs on iTunes shot up from $0.99 a song, to $1.29. After fan backlash, SONY music issued a statement claiming the increase was- wait for it– a mistake. Fans blamed iTunes and Apple for the hike, and took to the net blogging the greed of mogul companies. The U.K.’s Guardian Newspaper eventually uncovered it was in fact SONY behind the price hike, not iTunes.
Now the same seems to be true regarding the 1992 classic that sparked an acting career for Houston and greatest selling soundtrack of all time. The film was suddenly pulled from Netflix Streaming, and now is only available through the mail for rental, which for those who have the Netflix service know, a title listed as “a long wait” on the top of your queue will be there until Hell freezes over.
It is also interesting to mention that Amazon still offers the film for download viewing… for $2.99 a pop. The film, which was first written as a vehicle for Steve McQueen, will be released on Blu Ray next month.
But can we see a trend here? Look what happened to Elvis Presley, or Kurt Cobain’s catalogue once they died.
But to say the companies are purposely trying to make money off the grieving fans?
It kind of makes me think of 3 years ago and the death of another music icon, Michael Jackson. They had a film out a month later, This is It!, with a new ‘best of’ every month following, along with a bonus track of some young hip-hop artist ‘auto-tuning’ away along-side the King of Pop.
I guess you can’t really be surprised at this… really.