DVDs Had Something Streaming Never Will. It’s Time to Bring It Back. (2024)

Fans were quick to dub Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers this summer’s undeniable hit, circulating fan edits and memes about (spoiler!) throuples, and writing fan fiction en masse on sites like Archive of Our Own and Wattpad.

The movie’s production team invited the stans behind the scenes with a video diary series on Instagram, as well as with new featurettes about some of the more technical aspects of filming certain tennis scenes popping up on X.

But when the Challengers Blu-ray was announced on May 16, it included no bonus content—it’s not even being released in 4K.

Fans weren’t just upset, they were downright baffled. Cinephiles voiced their deep disappointment in the release—specifically citing the lack of bonus features, cast commentary, interviews, and gag reels.

The outcry makes it clear that fans want these extras to exist as more than just ephemeral fodder on social media. They want ownership over the intimate details of a movie they love. A comment on the Challengers Instagram isn’t enough; fans want the high-res film clips of the three leads being cute together behind the scenes to watch for all eternity. So why won’t these studios give that to them?

“You want to know the behind-the-scenes, especially if you’re a fan or a stan,” Ava Chau, 23, said. “You want to see all this stuff. You want to know everything. And that’s what makes you want to buy these.”

Chau said the severe lack of Challengers extras makes it feel out of place in her physical media collection, which is growing with the help of special releases from boutique labels.

“I’m a collector,” Chau said. “I want the best, most detailed version of this thing I love.”

Collecting takes many forms. Art is an asset class that provides handsome returns for those who can afford to invest in respected collections. But not every collection is built with the intention to sell or make money from it—in fact, for many movie lovers, their collections stem from wanting to preserve their favorite films, and in turn, preserve access. More than 6 in 10 Americans consider themselves collectors, a number growing most among Gen Z. Across the board the most popular collected item is coins, and sitting at No. 5 and No. 6 are music and movie memorabilia, respectively.

The Criterion Collection has become arguably the most recognized distributor among film fans and philistines alike. It consistently puts out stunning releases, and in recent years has been quick to the draw on more timely films: Criterion recently released Academy Award–winning Anatomy of a Fall fitted with a new interview with the director, deleted and alternate scenes, audition footage from several of the actors, and some extra content about the internet’s favorite furry actor, Snoop.

Criterion has built a presence online over several decades, due in part to its “Shop the Closet” series where movie stars, directors, musicians, and more browse a tightly packed room full of its releases and share memories or anecdotes about their favorites.

Criterion focuses consistently on what most would consider classics, but there are more niche corners of the internet than ever, leaving room for more players to enter the game.

“We’re now releasing four 4K titles a month,” Richard Lorber, president and CEO of Kino Lorber, said. “Which is picking up the pace by 100 percent from what we were doing just six months ago, and that’s because it’s working.”

U.S. consumer spending on at-home entertainment grew by more than $6 billion in 2023. While the numbers remain dismal when you include the sinking ship that is DVDs, 4K UHD Blu-ray sales were up 15 percent just in the last quarter of 2023—due in large part to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which sold out in under a week. Nolan, a very outspoken proponent of physical media, went as far as calling streaming services “evil” when explaining his push for high-quality physical releases.

“It’s no longer simply about men in their basem*nt wanting to see Iron Man,” John Rotella, SVP of sales at Shout! Studios, said. “You have to be really, really careful. You have to really do your due diligence in really capturing everything. So you have to have people on staff that are hyperdetailed and fully aware of the extras that you need.”

More and more of these labels are finding ways to pack value into their offerings, with their own teams sourcing interviews and photos, commissioning new art, and more. Some labels deal exclusively in genre films, some focus on “the classics,” some don’t have a direction at all—but they all provide a high-quality product that doesn’t exist on any of the major streaming platforms, and that is luring in even the casual collector.

One place film executives could look for inspiration is the booming vinyl market. For the second time since 1987, vinyl records outsold CDs, and the vinyl industry doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, CD and vinyl revenues grew to $5.1 billion last year, a 13 percent increase from 2022 to 2023. This was the 17^th consecutive year of growth for vinyl sales.

Almost every music listener can immediately access the (near) entirety of musical history with a few clicks on their favorite music service, packaged neatly for anywhere from $10 to $15. But younger generations are increasingly motivated by the idea of brand loyalty that comes with being a stan of the global superstars dominating the charts, whether it’s Taylor Swift, BTS, Billie Eilish, or Beyoncé.

When Swift drops an album, there are upward of five different vinyl pressings, all in their own color variant, with edition-specific bonus tracks and other exclusives—and all costing $30-plus each.

Musical artists are finding a way to manufacture value within something that is expensive (when you compare to the relatively free streaming model), clunky, and difficult to take care of. Young people seem to bypass all of these hurdles and flock to vinyl, so it might be time for movie studios to rethink their own value proposition and understand the fandom behavior that has begun brewing above the surface.

“I think now there isn’t an average customer,” said Justin LaLiberty, who is director of operations at OCN Distribution, owner of beloved indie label Vinegar Syndrome, and a curator for their sublabel, Cinématographe Films. “I’m constantly seeing people pop into the Vinegar Syndrome Facebook groups and be like ‘Where do I start?’ And that, to me, is really exciting, and at the same time also makes me kind of nervous.”