Movie producer Adam Shapiro can't wait to see how this thriller ends.
In a 21st century twist on direct-to-video movies, AOL plans to announce Tuesday that it's premiering Shapiro's new horror film, "Incubus," in an unproven format: direct to download.
Time Warner Inc.'s Internet business will begin selling the movie, which stars Tara Reid, for $7.99 on its relaunched site for teens, AOL Red, starting on Halloween. DVDs will go on sale a month later.
Reflecting filmmakers' growing hopes for Internet distribution, Shapiro and his partner decided to go direct to download after they were unable to find an attractive deal for theatrical release.
"Faced with the choice of going the traditional route, which we thought was onerous, we decided, 'Let's roll the dice on this one,' " said Shapiro, a longtime film and TV producer.
But a high-profile direct-to-download experiment on Google Video fizzled early this year, when the indie film "Waterborne" sold only a few hundred copies despite heavy promotion.
Analysts also warned that, although technology companies are using movie downloads to promote everything including iPods and Web search, consumers haven't shown a willingness to shell out cash to watch feature films on their computer screens.
"Everyone on the Web has an ulterior motive for having movies on their site," said Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research Inc., which focuses on the entertainment industry. "Producers have got to be cautious about believing there's going to be a lot of unit sales in the early years, because it's going to be years before you can get anywhere near the potential number of customers you reach through DVD or theatrical distribution."
In this case, AOL's motive is promoting its Red site, said Malcolm Bird, senior vice president of AOL's children and teens properties. Red attracts about 4 million teens a month as part of AOL's subscription service, but the site is moving out to the open Web at b-red.comOct. 17.
Bird and Shapiro used to work together at Hanna-Barbera, the cartoon production company. While hanging out at Shapiro's home in the Hollywood Hills this summer, Shapiro mentioned that his production company, Automatic, had recently finished "Incubus," which was shot in Romania last year with a budget of about $5 million. He queued up the trailer on his big-screen TV.
