Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard, And More Back Sean Parker's Premium VOD Plan

How times change. Back in 2011, 32 filmmakers including Michael Bay, Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Michael Mann, Todd Phillips, Antoine Fuqua, Robert Zemeckis, and Guillermo del Toro signed their names to an open letter urging Hollywood to abandon plans for a premium VOD service that, at the time, would see theatrical releases available to be ordered by customers at home after sixty days for $29.95. They argued that the model was not sustainable, nor was it good for the moviegoing experience. The filmmakers believed that "what sells for $30-a-viewing today could be blown out for $9.99 within a few years," hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue would be lost, and theaters would close. Now, just five years later, some of the industry's biggest names are backing a premium VOD plan that's even more ambitious.

Last week it was reported that Facebook and MySpace tech titan Sean Parker is part of a startup called The Screening Room who are busy pitching...