WWE Plans For 2008 TV , PPV and Films

The feeling among WWE managament is that they have "turned a corner" when it comes to producing better pay-per-view events, including early results from the Royal Rumble. The company was very happy with how the Royal Rumble PPV went down. WWE has been working to make each pay-per-view more unique than the other ones since the Summer of last year. The Upcoming No Way Out PPV will feature two Elimanation Chamber matches in one night.

-Some have wondered that with SmackDown leaving the CW Network, would WWE be streaming SmackDown on WWE.com. Right now, WWE wants to find a new home for the show before anything, but it is possible in the future that WWE.com will have an exclusive SmackDown show but for the time being they want it to be a broadcast show only.

When SmackDown moves to it's new network this year, WWE wants to get a higher price tag for it from the new network. Negotiations are already underway with other networks and by the looks of early talks, WWE will indeed get a higher price tag for the show.

- WWE is planning to keep WWE Films focused on direct-to-video projects and has several movies in the works. This is due to the poor box office of the last few theater projects such as The Condemned and The Marine. Both movies DVD rentals actually generated higher revenues than the box office for both films. Therefore it make more sense for direct to video projects as WWE Films need to establish itself as a credibility brand while cutting down losses.

WWE Films has one movie they are working on that is a theatrical project, but there will be no releases from WWE Films in all of 2008. All filming work they are doing right now are for 2009 releases. It costs WWE $4-5 million to do a direct-to-video project and $20 million to do a theatrical project.