Boeing Breaks Into the Movies

Boeing has come up with a new corporate growth plan: break into the movies.
In a few months, Boeing expects to announce the formation of a new business, now known as Boeing Digital Cinema. And no, the company is not about to produce an epic in which the wise Obi-Wan Stonecipher and the perpetually boyish Alan Skywalker battle the Evil Empire in Toulouse.

Instead, Boeing is going to use its satellite and communications technology to distribute movies, and will launch its service in conjunction with "a major Hollywood film-a blockbuster," says Bob Dean, business development VP at Boeing Space and Communications.

Today, movies still get to theatres printed on celluloid, packed in cans and delivered by Federal Express. With Boeing Digital Cinema, movies will be transmitted from studios to a Boeing-operated distribution center on a secure fiber-optic link, and distributed over satellite links to theaters equipped with digital projectors.
"It's secure, and it allows the owners of rights to monitor when the film is shown-both of which are problems today," says Dean. "We can cut distribution costs by two-thirds." It is serious money: Boeing estimates that the U.S. domestic business could run as high as $5 billion annually.

It is also unfamiliar territory for Dean, who came to Boeing from Lockheed Martin's Sunnyvale operation-source of spy satellites-and held a series of senior jobs at the CIA. "It's a different world," he says of the motion pictures. "But they're good people once you understand how they work."

By Bill Sweetman