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Fuel Economy News

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Greentech: Towns Grease the Wheels to Save Fuel

by By JIM NORMAN
4 Jul 2008 at 11:58am
Some local agencies are turning to used vegetable oil to run their vehicles.

Volkswagen to Make Limited Edition of 1-Liter Car (282 MPG!) in 2010

3 Jul 2008 at 7:45pm
VW's 282 MPG Super Fuel Efficient Car The 1-Liter car has been around in prototype form since 2002 and greens everywhere have been drooling at its 282 miles per gallon fuel economy (or 1 liter of gasoline per 100 kilometers, hence the name). VW has finally decided to make more and sell them, and a limited edition (estimated in the thousands) should start selling in 2010. 1-Liter Car Technical Specs The One-Liter car (or 1-Litre, over in Europe) weights only 660 pounds. The body is made from carbon composites and it is shaped to be extremely slippery, giving it a coefficient of drag of only 0.16 ("the average car comes in around 0....

Veggie Burgers, Green BBQ Drinks and GPS Devices

3 Jul 2008 at 12:38pm
:: Seek out your town's best veggie burger joint. :: Sip on sustainable drinks at your 4th of July fete. :: Save gas, cash and the planet by getting techy with mobile internet mapping. :: Add flavor to an ordinary salad or pasta by tossing in some garlic scapes. :: Learn why off-roading

Today's News From the Cars.com Family

by Stephen Markley
2 Jul 2008 at 4:30pm
Hybrids are all the rage these days, as gas prices break records and consumers look for ways to squeeze more bang out of their buck. Ask.cars.com gives you a picture of the entire market for hybrids, from small sedans to...

Warner experiments with theatrical + DVD hybrid release for "Watchmen"

28 May 2008 at 11:23am

Fascinating story in the New York Times [free reg required] yesterday about Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc. and how it's trying to wrestle with the latest trends in theatrical releases, where a decline of DVD sales is terrifying everyone in the industry, an industry where so much of the revenue from a film project is expected from just those sales.

How important is this revenue? The Times reports that up to 70% of movie revenue comes from DVD sales, depending on the release and the quality of the disk packaging. You just know that movies like Iron Man and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are going to enjoy terrific DVD sales when released.

Following in the footsteps of many successful graphic novel adaptations for the big screen (think Sin City, a film I intensely disliked, 300, a film I thought was great fun, and even the latest dark, brooding Batman films based more on the oevre of graphic novels than the goofy mythos of "The Batman") Warner is releasing Watchmen based on the complicated but highly popular graphic novel series of the same name.

But what's so darn interesting is that they are simultaneously going to also be releasing a second Watchmen movie directly to video for retail release just five days after the film opens (e.g. after opening weekend), entitled Tales of the Black Freighter. As the NYT explains, "Tales" will "follow a side Watchmen storyline about a shipwreck".

Unfamiliar with the Watchmen series? Here's the synopsis of the movie, as reported on IMDB: "When an ex-superhero has been murdered, a vigilante named Rorshach begins an investigation into the murder, which begins to lead to a much more terrifying conclusion. And also uncovers a plot to discredit and murder various heroes. Rorschach discovers a far wider ranging conspiracy involving his colleagues' past which could completely change the course of history."

Check out the photo on the right: that's a scene from the Watchmen movie wherein actor Jesse Reid is actually sitting and reading, you guessed it, Tales of the Black Freighter. I'm reminded of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, wherein the secondary characters are frequently seen reading Banzai comic books which, by coincidence, I also have on my shelf.

Nonetheless, kudos to Warner for risking a few million on the production of this secondary film and testing the waters to see if long, complicated stories can be spread across both a theatrical release and a commercial DVD made available simultaneously.

The next step they should consider is offering some sort of coupon, discount or rebate so that people who see the theatrical Watchmen movie can get a price break (or extra goodies) if they also purchase Tales of the Black Freighter. Now that would be an awesome experiment!

By the way, if I can be a bit catty, Warner also complains in the Times piece about soft DVD sales of Will Smith's latest movie, I Am Legend without bothering to mention that it just wasn't that good a movie and that once you got over the scary vampire aspect, not a very interesting storyline either. This is consistent with MPAA strategy, as far as I can remember, where it complains about sales -- usually in the context of "how much they've lost to file sharing" -- without ever acknowledging that perhaps the quality of the product is suffering. This also factors into the industry complaints of poor sales with Blu-Ray releases: how many films are on the shelf that are worth $25+ per disk, when the DVD is often less than half that price and looks pretty darn good on modern players anyway?

I applaud Warner for trying something new and am excited to see how the market receives this experimental dual-release of Watchmen and Tales of the Black Freighter.