Say Whaaaa? Special Edition: Disney Blames Alice's Reduced Theatrical Windows on 'Potential Piracy'

Odeon cinemas, which has theaters all over the U.K., Ireland and Italy, has made good on a threatened boycott of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland -- a direct response to Disney's plan to reduce the all-important window between theatrical and home video release. Industry standard is 17; Disney wants 12. Disney's defense, interestingly, is not "because the sooner we move product off Tesco shelves, the sooner we can make back our staggering investment," but rather the old anti-piracy song-and-dance: "If a cinema stopped showing a film before the 17-week exclusivity period," goes the argument, "the audience did not have a legitimate way to see the movie -- potentially leading to piracy." And while 12 weeks should be more than sufficient for this 3D fractured fairy tale, to pull from our own incredulous-outburst playbook ...Say Whaaaa?

What does that even mean? Disney is doing this as a public service, in order to prevent Mad Hatter-obsessed civilians who didn't get a chance to see the movie in its first 12 weeks of release from turning into petty criminals? That movie piracy rises when a film is pulled from theaters? I'd like to see some numbers backing that up, as common sense would suggest the most lucrative period on a busy movie pirate's calendar would be in the first weeks of a film's wide release -- that period before word-of-mouth turns buzz ice cold in this, the Golden Age of Blockbuster Trash. What's more, if the home video comes out on the 12th week, wouldn't piracy increase then, when anyone with $19.99 (or the equivalent in pounds) suddenly has access to it? Or are the vagaries of blockbuster release schedules and home video economics escaping my pedestrian grasp? Someone bring in the Say Whaaaa? singers. One of them has a MBA.

· Alice in Wonderland will not be shown in Odeon cinemas [BBC]