Recent papers have shown that, in contrast to “the Long Tail” theory, movie sales remain concentrated in a small number of hits. These papers have argued that concentrated sales can be explained, in part, by heterogeneity in quality and increasing returns from social effects. Our research...

For many years movies have been released using a series of staggered release windows, where releases are strategically timed across different product and geographical markets. These release windows have meant that movies were released first in theaters and several months later on DVD, and in...