Dear Mr. Cuban,
I sincerely hope you please take the time to read this, as there are a couple of things I wanted to touch on with this email. (Well, it started as an email, but then I couldn’t find an address for you =) )
First of all I really admire the way you have built up your career, and the fact that you see the true potential of the internet and other forms of media/communications.
Therefore, I feel that I have to let you know about something that is currently going on on the internet with Magnolia Pictures, a company you own.
A few weeks ago, Magnolia released a great Swedish film, Let The Right One In on DVD and Blu-Ray. For some reason, they felt the need to completely re-do the subtitles for the movie, discarding the ones that were used theatrically. The new ones are extremely simplistic, missing sentences in some occasions, and they take quite a bit of the subtext and subtlety out of the film. (You can see for yourself here: http://iconsoffright.com/news/2009/0...les_in_to.html)
However, this issue is not really the point of my e-mail. My email is about Magnolia’s response to the issue.
First, they stated that this was a conscious choice, and that it was not an error. However, they did say they would change the subtitles back to the theatrical ones for future pressings of the disks. They also said that they will not have a mail in exchange offer for the people who already own it, who wish to have the theatrical version. In fact, they said that the new version will be available for those people to purchase.
Now, what that says to me is, “You purchased something that was not what you expected (They did not let anybody know the subtitles differed from the theatrical showings), and now we expect you to purchase it a second time to get what you thought you were originally getting”.
Apparently, I am not the only one that interpreted it this way, because this spread across the internet like a wild fire, popping up on most horror blogs and sites like The Consumerist, and especially at the Home Theater Forum and DVDTalk, the two largest industry discussion sites on the internet. At that point an e-mail campaign started to magnolia.
Most egregious, however, is the response that Magnolia had for their customers. I am including it in it’s entirety below. (You can see it in context here: http://iconsoffright.com/news/2009/0...t_the_rig.html)
Quote:
| Yes the bloggers are having a field day on this one. Normally they like to pick on the English Dub tracks, but in this case it’s the subtitles. Obviously online tend to get rowdy and bandwagon mentality without knowing all the details. The current subtitle track is not altering the context of the film at all, in fact it’s a more literal translation than any prior version of subtitles. It’s not a defective or faulty subtitle file. Just more literal and larger in size for the small screen. Both English and Spanish subtitle files were produced for this dvd release. Frankly it’s not all that uncommon to have the subs vary from prior releases, typically go unnoticed as subs are purely a translation of film dialogue. This wouldn’t have been a blip had it not been for one particular horror blog doing a side by side and claiming that they are wrong. They are not. We are not doing a recall or anything of that nature, again, these are not defective. Title came out two weeks ago and general public don’t notice and don’t care – bloggers are well known for jumping on something, making an issue of it and moving on. We have decided that based on the feedback that we will be making a running change, so that going forward (once inventories deplete), we will be making that subtitle version available. Options in set up will be; English Subtitles / English (theatrical) Subtitles / Spanish Subtitles” |
Now, this is where the bad PR comes into play. Again, this reply has spread across the internet, and now there are people boycotting Magnolia films. (In fact, I held off buying Timecrimes today, just because of this issue).What is getting under people’s skin especially, is they said they are altering further pressings “because of fan reaction”. These fans (myself included) are the people who already purchased the movie, and we are now left in the cold. The fact that the person at Magnolia who wrote that shrugs off their customers and says “general public don’t notice and don’t care” is very disheartening for their customers, and all around seems like terrible PR. Especially when, in the occasion that another film studio runs into a situation like this, they always have an exchange. (I again note, the customers want a voluntary exchange, not a widespread recall).
In most cases, a disk exchange like this costs a few dollars per disk that is sent out. On top of that, it is not a huge amount of people that participate in them. In the end, an exchange program would not cost a lot of money, but would still save face with the company’s customers, and save Magnolia from having a huge black cloud of bad publicity around them. (And in my honest opinion, it is the right thing to do)
I just wanted to bring this to your attention, because I know you are a person that knows the power of the internet, and you know what bad word of mouth can do to a business. The fact is that this email from Magnolia, and their general reaction to their returning customers is all over the internet right now…and that can’t be good.
I thank you for reading this letter, I really appreciate your time.
James Koch
An (Ex?) Magnolia Customer who bought Let The Right one in, and does feel a bit ripped off.
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