Jackass 2.5 is being released Dec 19th, and its free for a short while. I’ve included the trailer etc.
For two weeks beginning on December 19th Paramount Digital Entertainment and MTV New Media will release “Jackass 2.5″ exclusively online courtesy of Blockbuster Inc..
The 64-minute film will be offered for free during this time and then will move to traditional distribution platforms like pay-per-view and DVD as well as Apple’s iTunes.
“The new material includes opening and closing sequences and documentary-style interviews, mainly about what did not work,” said Jeff Tremaine, director of the franchise’s movies. The movie is unrated, and both the complete version and its racier segments, when sold online, will be “age-gated,” with age-verification technology ensuring that consumers are 17 or older. (These methods, however, can be easily subverted.)
“There’s more vomiting, nudity and defecation,” one executive said, speaking more candidly than the companies involved had agreed to and on condition of anonymity. “The stuff that consumers really want.”
The online release of “Jackass 2.5″ will also apparently herald a permanent online presence for the Jackass crew who plan to regularly release new content for users of the site beginning February 9th.
“If this works, it could open up and really change the game about additional content that studios can create,” said Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment.
Among the movie’s new bits, executives said, are “Human Golf Tee,” in which Johnny Knoxville invites a driving-range patron to hit one off a tee on Bam Margera’s crotch, and Mr. Margera firing a bazooka round in his family’s own kitchen.
Now it’s unlikely that other movie producers will be able to follow in the footsteps of the Jackass crew being that online movie distribution would be difficult to make as much profits for them as a brick and mortar cineplex, but it could be an option for smaller movie producers looking for an audience.
“We’re trying to assess here not only the potential for a broadband movie online, but also the different ways to distribute,” Mr. Lesinski said. “Within 30 days we’ll have a very good idea where the consumption is coming from.”
Tags: December 2007