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Forget shelling out $40 to take a family out to the movies. In this economy, people are opting to stay home. With audiences dwindling and studios devoted to distributing independent films shuttering their doors, filmmaker Ed Burns faces a challenge.

"How do we get the film directly to that audience that still loves them? And we thought, 'Movies On Demand,'" says Burns.

His newest film, "Nice Guy Johnny," is not his first foray down a road less traveled. Always the independent spirit, a few years ago Burns released the film "Purple Violets" exclusively on iTunes.

"The revenue that that brought in surprised us and that's when we recognized, 'Wait, you do not need to release a film theatrically in order to make some money,'" he says.

What Burns hit upon is part of what film critic Logan Hill of New York Magazine describes as a "tectonic shift" in the way audiences consume media -- namely, by pointing and clicking.

"The long-term trend in everything we consume in entertainment is that we download it. We get our books on our Kindles and our iBooks, we get our TV over Hulu and it's happening with films rapidly," says Hill.

Not only does this model give audiences greater control, but filmmakers as well. Previously, they were left out of marketing and distribution decisions.

No studio release means no studio input, which means Burns can now direct his films long after the cameras stop rolling.

"The most frustrating thing that I've had over the last couple of years is have a film that I made, a film that I love, have its title changed, have a poster that nobody liked, have a trailer that we didn't think represented the film,' says Burns. "We made the film, we're the artists, we know how to sell it. Because we're the people who love these movies and that's a major change."

In the past, small independent films were given limited releases, playing only in New York and Los Angeles. By skipping the theaters and taking this alternate route, films can actually reach a much more widespread audience.

"The great thing is we can now deliver our film into over 40 million living rooms," says Burns.

While the label "straight to video" may have once been a black eye, with numbers like that, digital is definitely the wave of the future, says Matt Dentler, the head of programming at FilmBuff, the company distributing Burns' latest film.

"I think we're going to see more big studio movies and movies with movie stars premiering On Demand, because I think more and more people realize it's not 'straight to TV' or 'straight to video.' It's actually bigger than that," says Dentler.

"Nice Guy Johnny" is available On Demand, on DVD and on iTunes, beginning on Tuesday, October 26.