Jeff Newcomb

Re: Movies not on DVD caught in 'rights hell'

Warner claimed at a chat a couple of years ago that they no longer have the rights to Buddy Buddy.

Patrick McCart

Re: Movies not on DVD caught in 'rights hell'

It might be a mistake on Warner's part concerning Buddy Buddy. The theatrical poster clearly says it's from MGM, but distributed by UA. Network was in the same position and WB obviously released that.

Tell The Weinstein Company to release Richard Williams' animated masterpiece The Thief and the Cobbler on DVD in Panavision widescreen and uncut! See and hear what you're missing from their Bitsy Award winner of Worst Standard Edition DVD of 2006 on YouTube!

Mark Edward Heuck

Re: Movies not on DVD caught in 'rights hell'

SPLIT IMAGE was actually produced by Polygram, during their first stab at financing films in the '80's. Those films seem to be in a limbo - the video rights at one time were divided among Embassy video (IMAGE, KING OF THE MOUNTAIN, DEADLY BLESSING), Columbia (SIX WEEKS), Universal (ENDLESS LOVE, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER), and later Vestron/Artisan (reissues of the Universal titles). Polygram even had a short-lived TV division that was later sold to King Features/Hearst Entertainment, and TV rights to those movies went with them.

So far, the only film from that package to reemerge on DVD is AMERICAN WEREWOLF, which somehow reverted to John Landis and George Folsey, and was relicensed to Universal. I had believed that the remaining films would have gone to MGM along with the whole pre-96 Polygram library they bought, but a theater-operator friend who miraculously found a print of SPLIT IMAGE to screen for a festival said he got it from Universal. I haven't been able to investigate this any deeper though.

My speculation on BUDDY BUDDY is that the rights may have reverted back to producer Jay Weston - another film he produced, NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER, is no longer owned by its original studio of release (Columbia) either.

\"As I looked back over my life, I realized that I enjoyed nothing--not art, not sex--more than going to the movies.\" -- Gore Vidal

JulianK

Re: Movies not on DVD caught in 'rights hell'

I don't know if it will help you pin down the US owners, Mark, but Deadly Blessing has been recently been released on DVD in Australia (by Umbrella Entertainment) and the UK (by Arrow Films "under exclusive license from Hollywood Classics Ltd, on behalf for Universal Pictures International, BV"). The UK box carries the Universal logo, too.

Incidentally, I always enjoy reading your bloodhound analysis of who owns what movies, so thanks for your contributions to this thread (and elsewhere)!

Roger Rollins

Re: Movies not on DVD caught in 'rights hell'

An understandable confusion, but not the case............

MGM withdrew from film distribution at the end of 1973, and signed a 10 year deal for domestic theatrical distribution with United Artists. (Int'l went to CIC).

The company was scaled back to making only 3-4 movies per year, and those went through UA domestically.

NETWORK was a special case. It was a co-production between MGM and United Artists. MGM had domestic rights, and UA had foreign. That still is the situation today, except that Warner Bros. is the successor-in-interest to old MGM, and "NEW MGM" owns the UA holdings.

MGM decided to take a stab at getting back into full scale film production, and prepared an ambitious, and star-laden slate that looked great (on paper).
BUDDY, BUDDY was one of those films, and it was set for a Xmas 1981 release. Meanwhile, post-Heaven's Gate, United Artists went down the tubes, and its parent company Transamerica, was hungry to get out of the movie business. Kerkorian ended up buying UA and merging the two companies. By the time BUDDY, BUDDY came out, MGM owned UA, but most of the ads and posters of the era still had a UA logo on them.

Meanwhile, back to the rights issue...my guess is it could be related to the French play and 1973 film called "L'Emmerdeur" (by Francis Veber) which was the source material on which BUDDY, BUDDY was based. The original French movie starred Lino Ventura and was called "A PAIN IN THE A**" when released here in the states.

A remake of that film is due out this year, so this underlying rights trail may be the reason why BUDDY, BUDDY is in limbo.....