Universal is re-releasing Peaceful Warrior, an adaptation of Dan Millman's modestly titled book Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives, with a very interesting marketing campaign: They're giving away tickets for free. This is not the first time studios have tried such tactics, earlier this year teachers could see Hilary Swank's Freedom Writers free of charge for a week (Geez, don't teachers get enough perks with those fat paychecks?). Nearly the entire marketing campaign of the film is going into this ticket giveaway, upwards of $15 million dollars. It's a spiritual film, (see the oh-so subtle Christ implications in the picture to the right), so naturally Universal is partnering with Electronic Mecca Best Buy for the promotion. If you go to Best Buy's website from this Sunday to April 1st, you can get up to ten free tickets to the film, which returns to theaters on March 30th.

The film already received a limited release last summer by Lionsgate to poor reviews and a gross of $1.1 million, so why release it again? Universal rep Adam Fogelson says "Traditional marketing tactics will work for the majority of films, but there are going to be some films that are not going to work with them. This film, in my opinion, cannot be reduced to a 30-second spot." Really? Allow me to explain it in one sentence: "An athlete has a mystical experience after suffering a debilitating injury." It stars everyone's favorite spiritual leader Nick Nolte as Socrates, a "mysterious stranger with the power to tap into strength and understanding." (And, knowing Nolte, keg after keg of delicious booze.)

Most interesting to me is that this "spiritual" film that they want to "touch" as many viewers as possible was directed by Victor Salva, a convicted child molester. How does this man continue to get work? And doesn't anyone notice that he only directs films involving taut, scantily clad teenage boys? (Salva also did Powder, Jeepers Creepers and Jeepers Creepers 2) Hell, the plot outline of this movie on imdb is listed as: A chance encounter with a stranger changes the life of a college gymnast." Um, hello? Aren't there more qualified filmmakers out there who haven't, you know, molested people? They couldn't give away tickets to this thing! Oh, wait...

Last year I actually went into a Circuit City on Black Friday. I still wake up in a cold sweat every once in a while, so obviously you won't see me pawing through the DVD stacks the day after Thanksgiving. Or doing anything that involves the words "retail," "lines" or "doorbusters." But that's not to say you can't have a ball struggling against a ceaseless mass of bargain-hungry human flesh if you want to. As a matter of fact, I'll even help out: Here's what you'll find at the big stores, movie-wise, come post-Turkey Day. And if you can get in, snag some good flicks and get out with no hassle -- then you've earned your goodies.

At Circuit City you can get any of the following for $2.99 apiece: The Cat in the Hat, Charlie's Angels, Dance with Me, Godzilla, Hulk, Intolerable Cruelty, Natural Born Killers, Red Dragon, Spy Game, The Sweetest Thing, Total Recall and Wimbledon. For $8.99 each you can also pick from Chicken Little, Click, Grey's Anatomy S1, The Little Mermaid, Monster House, The Office S1, The Polar Express and X-Men 3. CC is also offering a pretty solid sale that lasts over the weekend, one that includes several 2 for $8 titles, several excellent $5.99 choices and a whole bunch of multi-disc sets that are a lot cheaper than usual.

OK, so by this time you've already spent about 3.2 hours struggling to grapple some DVDs at Circuit City, which means it's probably about 8:10am and you can now head on over to Best Buy, which is where you'll find...

If you're the sort of DVD collector who loves nothing more than the kitschy little key-chains, chatchkes and doo-dads (and you're a big fan of Kevin Smith's Clerks 2), then you'll want to hit Best Buy on November 28. And make it during your lunch hour, because you'll be leaving the store with a decidedly unique Happy Meal.

Best Buy is offering an exclusive "Mooby's Fun Meal Box," which includes the Clerks 2 DVD, a cup, a visor, a Mooby's name tag ... and a box. Looks like this extra-special meal will set the Askewniversers back an extra ten bucks for the additional treats. ($29.99 MSRP, although that will undoubtedly go down during the week of release.)

Frankly I don't think the Mooby's toys are all that worthy of an extra ten smackers, but then again I'm not much of a memorabilia collector. The movie, though, is a winner, and I'll definitely be adding C2 to my collection soon.

[Thanks to JoBlo for the tip and the pic.]

Those of you interested in buying The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which goes on sale today, have an interesting option. Instead of purchasing the DVD, which Best Buy has for $14.99 (other chains may sell the DVD at the MSR price of $29.99), you can download the movie from CinemaNow for only $9.99. This may not sound like an especially novel idea, with movie downloads having been available for some time, but the deal here is in the price. Typically CinemaNow offers new releases for about twice as much, a factor that has been the cause of most consumers' disinterest with the site. Even with their announcement over the summer that their downloads can be burned to disc (Chris told us about some problems there, though), a perk that puts the service ahead of iTunes and other download shops as far as viewing options go.

But is $5 off a good enough deal, really? Maybe for those of us who don't usually bother with the featurettes, deleted scenes and commentaries (the DVD has one with director Justin Lin), but in a culture that likes to own and collect things, near-ten-bucks sounds a bit much for a burned DVD. I still see shops like CinemaNow being good for renters, the audience that doesn't care about possessing the copy, and since The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift isn't available to rent on the site yet, Netflix still sounds like the better idea.

During that whole box office slump hype last year, studios weren't really worrying because they've been making most of their money on DVDs the past few years. Well, now it is time for them to start panicking, as the DVD market is experiencing a slow growth period. Because this also affects stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy, all of which depend on their discounted DVDs to lure in customers, the answer for the studios and the retailers is DVD kiosks. A year ago, such machines, which download movies and burn them onto discs while you wait or shop around the store, were being unveiled by DVD Station, and were being tested by Blockbuster Video, and I had also read somewhere about Wal-Mart's interest. McDonald's has also been experimenting in a partnership with MovieGallery.

Jim Wuthrich, a senior VP at Warner Bros. Home Entertainment who handles digital distribution (I wonder if all the studios have this division now) says the kiosks will likely appear in 2007, and the only delay is figuring out some licensing and technology issues. Presumably, the kiosks will feature older titles while new releases remain available on the shelf. The kiosks sound a tiny bit better than the movie download sites, which are building support from the studios, but the only way they could be a success is if they don't cost a lot. My feeling is that DVD sales are on the decrease because customers have suddenly realized that even at an average price of $20, buying movies just isn't worth it compared to renting.

The thing is, by next year, consumers may already be on the lookout for the next thing. With Blu-Ray and HD DVD now becoming available, the studios are doing a lot of research on consumer behavior, according to David Bishop at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Meanwhile, executives claim the Video-on-Demand download sites and services won't put a dent into packaged media for at least a decade.

I think the next year is going to be pretty interesting, regardless of what Hollywood decides to do, because there are so many transitions going on. ...