How to Sell a Movie (or Fail) in Four Hours - New York Times

How to Sell a Movie (or Fail) in Four Hours - New York Times: "In today's world of computerized supply chains, the whole process of releasing a movie on DVD has become one in which success can be measured nearly instantly. At 8 a.m. Tuesday, you arrive in the Southern California office of Universal or Sony. Already, Wal-Mart stores in the East have been open for four hours; based on the number of sales in that short time frame, their computer programs will calculate projections, accurate to within 5 percent, of how many total units of 'The Skeleton Key' or 'Stealth' will be sold in the first week, the first month, the first six months.
If your movie is performing below expectations, by the time you arrive at work Tuesday morning, already the unsold units are being loaded onto trucks to be returned. Something like this happened with DreamWorks Animation's 'Shrek 2.' The movie was a hit by any measure, but last May, when DreamWorks reported that it had sold fewer DVD's than it anticipated, its stock tumbled 17 percent over two days."