Movies for the 1%

You can rent films that are still in theaters in the privacy of your own home — if you pay $1,500 each.

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Fred Rosen, the retired Ticketmaster tycoon, was eating a melted ham-and-brie sandwich at the exclusive San Vicente Bungalows and spouting forth about belts.

Yes, what people use to hold up their pants. You can buy one at Walmart for $4, he noted. Or you can get one at Gucci for $1,500. “Every product I can think of has a luxury version, which got me thinking,” Rosen said. “Why not movies?”

It’s an idea that has captivated one entrepreneur after another over the years: For a high price, allow tech billionaires, Wall Street titans, professional athletes, Russian oligarchs and other ultra-wealthy people to rent movies — as soon as they come out in theaters — for viewing at home. Think of it like Netflix for one-percenters. But such upstarts have always sputtered.

Rosen, 75, and a septuagenarian golfing buddy, Dan Fellman, who is Hollywood’s foremost film distribution expert, may have finally figured out how to make it work. They have quietly founded Red Carpet Home Cinema, which rents first-run films for $1,500 to $3,000 each. Red Carpet has contracts with Warner Bros., Paramount, Lionsgate, Annapurna and Disney’s 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight divisions — resulting in some 40 movies annually, including blockbusters like Aquaman and A Star Is Born.

Those partnerships reflect entertainment-industry relationships that Rosen and Fellman have cultivated over decades. Most studios do not see them as disrupters from Silicon Valley.

Red Carpet also arrives at a time when the movie industry is undergoing sweeping change — not the least of which involves the manner in which Netflix is challenging the traditional way that films are released. For the most part, theater owners insist on a three-month period of exclusivity to play new films. Netflix has chipped away at that, offering theaters an exclusive window of three weeks or less for films like Roma and Bird Box.

Most studios see broader distribution change as inevitable, noted Harold Vogel, author of the textbook Entertainment Industry Economics. “Consumers want to have more control,” Vogel said.

There is a rigorous application process, and participants must have a credit card with a limit of at least $50,000.

Those who become customers must buy a $15,000 box that connects to a home theater system (installed by a technician) and comes with piracy protections.