Lionsgate easily topped the national home video charts the week ending Aug. 19 with The Hunger Games. The futuristic thriller – well on its way toward spawning a successful franchise a la Twilight – sold an estimated 3.8 million Blu-ray Discs and DVDs its first weekend in stores (it was released at midnight on Aug. 18), according to Lionsgate.

Not surprisingly, the film debuted at No. 1 on both the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert chart, which tracks overall disc sales, and Nielsen’s dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart.

Joseph and I will be reviewing this film on next week’s podcast in…

Streaming movies offers instant gratification: no waiting, no driving—plus great portability: you can watch on gadgets too small for a DVD drive, like phones, tablets and superthin laptops.

 

Hollywood movie studios should benefit, too. The easier it is to rent a movie, the more people will do it. And the more folks rent, the more money the studios make.

Well, apparently, none of that has occurred to the movie industry. It seems intent on leaving money on the table.

And if you don’t make your product available legally, guess what? The people will get it illegally. Traffic to…