John Fithian, the head of the National Association of Theatre Owners, a trade group based in Washington, DC, called Iger's suggestion this summer a "death threat" against his members. Fithian says that "if [release] windows were eliminated, what you would have would be fewer movies, fewer total dollars for the industry, and less choice for the consumer." He thinks movies would become little more than commodities and that hundreds or thousands of theaters would close.
Wagner's reaction to that kind of alarmism is typically suave. "I don't view this as, 'We're taking on the studios or the theater owners,' " he says. "All we're doing is experimenting to see if we can make our business model better. We'll see where it takes us."
Cuban's reaction is no less characteristic: "I don't give a s--t." Innovators, he says, have always encountered doubters at points of transition. "You can't find a great business where somebody didn't say the exact same things at the beginning."
Scott Kirsner (skirsner@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company contributing writer based in San Francisco.
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