An anonymous reader shared a report. Streaming was supposed to make physical media disappear, and it's coming very close to doing so. The DVD and Blu-ray market has declined from $4.7 billion in revenue in 2017 to just $1.5 billion in 2022. In September, Netflix ended its movie mail-in service. Best Buy is removing physical media from its brick-and-mortar stores, and Target and Walmart may follow suit. Some new movies never get a physical release at all. But counter-revolutions are gathering. Some movie fans never let go of physical media. They've spent years quietly buying up discarded thrift store discs from the many American households without DVD or Blu-ray players, waiting for a second chance. Other fans, frustrated by the limitations of streaming, have recently rediscovered physical media and are slowly joining the rearguard.
Physical media will never regain its former heights, but it may be able to last a little longer. It is supported by supporters and a cottage industry of independent and boutique film distributors who license classic and cult films and sometimes sell high-quality physical versions to enthusiasts. Crazy, fans. Some of these labels also offer streaming channels and video on demand, but they still do business on Blu-ray. Australian distributor Umbrella Entertainment said: “We are growing, not shrinking.”
And when Universal released Oppenheimer on 4K Blu-ray this fall, the first run sold out and rabid Christopher Nolan fans ransacked megastores that were trying to stop selling physical media. 4K Blu-ray is currently the smallest part of the movie disc market and requires an ultra-high resolution player and TV. This means that Oppenheimer's management was driven by a niche within a niche. But this episode seemed to show that there's a market for it, especially when there's a champion. Nolan himself has encouraged fans to rally around physical media, telling IGN last year, “If you buy 4K UHD, it's the same as buying Blu-ray. It's on your shelf, it's yours.” Told. ”[Y]you own it. That's not really the case with any form of digital distribution. ”