There’s a group of about 400 ultra-powerful and wealthy individuals who pay $100,000 to join a club called the Bel Air Circuit and then pay $4,000 a month to see movies on release day in their own home theaters. Bel Air Circuit literally sends a projectionist to your home to screen the movie using your home theater. It’s an expensive undertaking for the studios, but one that’s been in existence for more than 50 years. Each member of the Bel Air Circuit has an encryption key, just like the movie theaters get, that gives them access to the movie for a certain time period. We’re not talking about 4K either. The movie quality is identical to what you would see if you were sitting in a public movie theater. The advantage, and what part of your $4,000 a month pays for, is the absence of strangers chewing popcorn in your ear, talking, and disrupting your viewing to get up and go to the bathroom. In case your family and friends have to make that unwelcome trip to the bathroom, your $4,000 also buys you the ability to pause the movie — something you can't do in a theater.
