"We knocked on a lot of doors," says the director of the upcoming DVD release Midnight Reckoning. "They want blood and they want sex-and if they don't get it, they're just not interested. Either that, or they want big stars' names. ... So you have to garner some attention or interest by having some kind of theatrical [release], even if it's limited.

"There are a lot of films, if you've noticed, listed in your paper that have a 'limited release,' that say New York or Los Angeles. And the reason that is, is that the theatrical release sets the tone for all the other prices that you get along the way. That may be changing [soon], but that's still pretty much the thing: the more interest you get in the theatrical, the more sales you're going to get down the line. So there's a huge benefit to doing a theatrical if you can afford it, even a very limited theatrical. And the idea of giving it away was that, normally, at a bare minimum, it takes about $200,000, and usually it's about $500,000, to do a theatrical release. Even if it's five to ten cities."