David Lambert
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2001
- Messages
- 11,377
Columbia is very near depleting their popular
catalog titles. Fox is a studio with a very
small catalog base. Warner and MGM lead the pack
with catalog titles and they can afford to be
more gung-ho on their releases.
I wonder what will happen at that point.
Bot Columbia and Fox have lots of TV-on-DVD product they can release, of course. :wink:
However, I am sure that the Warners and MGMs will be pleased that more resources (replicating plants, authoring houses, distribution facilities, promotional item printers, etc.) are available once other studios have no need of them.
However, I also wonder whether studio cross-licensing will occur. I rather doubt it, but it's a possibility. "Hey WB, don't have time or resources avialable to release Adventures of Robin Hood? We'll do it for you, for a sizable cut of the profits!" But, again, I doubt that this will happen. That was the crux of the Universal/Columbia deal about foreign distribution, right? Uni decided to wait until the deal expired, rather than share the profits.
So instead, those studios with depleted catalogs will probably start pushing for the next set of upgrades. At first that will be "Super-Ultimate Editions" of previous releases. Next, they'll push for HD-DVD.
What are y'all's thoughts on all of that?
