Why DVD/Blu-Ray movie covers are so bad?

Well besides the fact that the quality of the covers are subjective, I'd say dvd/blu-ray covers are made to more prominently display the title of the movie and the main actors/selling points of the movie rather than worrying about looking cool, so when you're walking by them in the store, you think "oh hey look, Oblivion has tom cruise with a gun AND morgan freeman!" not, "oh hey there's a movie called Oblivion with...tom cruise on bridge?" Same thing with the World War Z, Star Trek, and Upside Down covers (and to an extent, Bourne Legacy). The title of the film and the main actors are displayed or named up front, as a way to entice you to see it and pick it up.

Not the case with everything of course, just an observation. If you want good blu-ray/dvd covers, Criterion does a pretty great job most of the time.

Some of them are good:

thats funny i was wondering this the other day, marketing makes alot of sense though. I REALLY REALLY loved the Evil dead blu ray box shit it even has amazing disk art! Also Django hada cool box imo

Others have answered the question sufficiently.

Covers are primarily about getting a person to buy the movie rather then anything else. There are exceptions to that, but primarily the goal of a cover is to appeal to the massesdave123321

DVD covers aside, it seems like even the movie posters themselves have nothing but just ugly, unimaginitive designs.  Just take a look at some of the posters in the opening post.  Oblivion looks like an art student's first attempts at using Photoshop, while the Total Recall poster is even worse, complete with the standard floating head/body pasted over imagaes that may or may not be in the movie.  It seems that no one really designs too many eye catching posters anymore.

Dvd covers are much smaller,  so they have to design it differently.  The text has to be bigger, and they'll often frame it closer on the actors' heads so they're more easily recognised.

Posters are about generating interest in the film.  They don't have to sell the movie with that one image.  It could be the first in a series of posters promoting the movie.  In addition to trailers and promos.  It has to be a striking image to get your attention and generate a certain amount of intrigue, make you curious about seeing the film. 

A dvd cover has to sell the movie in one image.  They have to condense into that one image every reason you might want to see this film.  It also has to be readily identifiable as the film so that you can easily find it if that's what you're looking for.

Agree, the posters of the movies are so much better.

[QUOTE="dave123321"]Covers are primarily about getting a person to buy the movie rather then anything else. There are exceptions to that, but primarily the goal of a cover is to appeal to the massesbrucewayne69

I watched Takers. I don't remember a single thing about it.

Guys what are some of your fave covers?dave123321

Because you've got to print 5 million dvd/blu-ray covers. Meaning you want to use as little ink as humanly possible and yet still create an attractive cover that presents the name of the movie. Poster are not nearly as mass produced as movie covers and are meant to be more striking and visually impressive then a movie cover. ferrari2001