Paramount to release movies in digital format only

Paramount Pictures has made the switch from traditional film to purely digital formats for its new releases, industry sources told the Los Angeles Times. "The Wolf of Wall Street" was the studio's first movie to be sent out to theaters on a disc rather than the familiar film reels that have been standard in Hollywood for more than a century. Executives of the theater industry told the Times they were informed by Paramount that the new "Anchorman 2" was the last production that would be released on 35-millimeter. Jan-Christopher Horak, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, told the Times the announcement had "huge significance" because it was the first time a major studio made its intentions about digital releases known. "I'm not shocked that it's happened, but how quickly it has happened," Horak said. The Times said Hollywood is particularly open to digital because of cost considerations. Printing a movie on disc costs about $100 compared to $2,000 for a film print.