Many were shocked by "The Waterboy"'s record-setting $39.4 million debut last weekend -- even its distributor, Disney. The studio had such low expectations for the Adam Sandler flick that it sold the TV rights to USA back in September as part of a five-movie package for a reported $15 million. (The deal also included "Six Days, Seven Nights" and "Holy Man.") Although experts say Disney charged too little for the comedy, which is projected to earn $115 million, it isn't, by any means, the first studio to fumble. Earlier this year, Paramount sold the TV rights for "Titanic" -- the top-grossing film of all time -- to NBC for only $30 million. That's a big step down from the $50 million NBC paid for "Men in Black."

But if recent low ratings for movies on TV are any indication, you can expect prices to keep falling. "The days of theatrical movies packing them in on TV are pretty much over," says Marc Berman, an analyst for the ad-buying firm Seltel, who adds that 10 years ago, most films could easily pull in a 30 share (a 30 share means that 30 percent of all televisions in use were watching). Not anymore. "Now everything's been on cable, video, or pay-per-view. It's a whole different universe." When Fox aired "Jurassic Park: The Lost World" this month, having paid $80 million to show it before cable and pay-per-view, its overall viewership (an 18 share) trailed NBC's made-for-TV miniseries "The Temptations." "Lost World" attracted fewer viewers for the time slot than Fox had a year ago when the network showed episodes of "King of the Hill" and "The X-Files" in that slot.

As movie ratings drop, ABC is trying a new strategy to make its blockbuster investments pay off. When it ran "Mission: Impossible" and "The Birdcage" this month, the network stretched the two-hour movies into three-hour time slots, thereby adding an extra five minutes of commercials. "To get a solid return, they're trying to make it 'event television,'" says Berman. "But who hasn't already seen 'The Birdcage'? If you didn't see it in the theater, you could have rented it."