Did Olive Films license a number of titles from Paramount? - Page 2  

I'll be buying these favorites of mine.






Crawdaddy

Hannie Caulder - finally! The Raquel Welch Western trilogy on DVD will be complete! hahahah. YES!

A shame that most of the studios have jumped on the Warner archive model bandwagon as a company like Olive may have had the opportunity to get the licenses to neglected films from other studios...instead these studios will probably release them on DVD-R (if they make it to that format at all) with no restoration and no chance of a Blu-ray.

I will do my utmost to support (by buying and getting others to buy) Olive films on DVD and Blu-ray and I hope everyone else does the same. 

Yes, I hope they have some success with this venture. I'll certainly be picking up:

Sands of the Kalahari (1965)
Crack in the World (1965)
Escape from Zahrain (1962)
On the Double (1961)
My Favorite Spy (1951)
Appointment with Danger (1951)
Dark City (1950)
Union Station (1950)
Rope of Sand (1949)

But this suggests that Paramount's asset management has been busy preserving heaps of films that the home video section just never bothered releasing on DVD.

Or it could simply be a case of Paramount fixing up these films for the current broadcast market and now trying to derive additional revenue from them.

This happens more than you'd think; an asset may be worth preserving, but still not be commercially viable as a "home video" release.

Old films are worth preserving, as works of art, any studio that let an original crumble to non-existance would have a public relations nightmare on it;s hands for one thing. Also, things are preserved because one day they might be more valuable - for example, if there's a remake of something, then everything related to that suddenly becomes a good prospect for sale on DVD/download/reruns on TV or whatever.

Moreover, preserving does not necessarily mean restoration which is much more time consuming and expensive.

I'm very excited about CRACK IN THE WORLD. It's very rarely seen these days, although I have a decent offair VHS from years ago.

If you'll excuse the pun, it's a "cracking" little SF film, and the special effects are pretty darn good too. You just have to suspend your disbelief about the "crack" bit - and remember that it was made before plate tectonics was widely accepted.

Wonderful news. I think I'll pick up the following releases:

 

Sands of the Kalahari (1965)
The Mountain (1956)
Knock on Wood (1954)
My Favorite Spy (1951)
Appointment with Danger (1951)
Dark City (1950)
Union Station (1950)
Rope of Sand (1949)

Who are OLIVE FILMS and have the released anything else in the past?

They are a wholesale DVD distributor of independent and art house films, foreign and domestic.  They sell to smaller retailers that do not have volume to use the big guys but only handle the smaller DVD companies such as Kino,  MPI, and Home Vision.  And yes they have distributed their own acquisitions with NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND being the only title I recognize.  They are a good company and as with everyone, this is a pleasant surprise to me, but they do have good distribution channels and are successful in their past endeavors.

So these discs should be available at all the big online retailers?

 In 2009 there was Legend Films
 This year, we have Olive Films and Lionsgate

Who will Paramount pick to distribute its films next year?  Attention Code Red, Severin, all the rest: start preparing your proposals and get in on the action - Paramount is licensing!

 Welcome aboard, Olive Films.  Hope you'll stay around the forum and give us updates.

When will you be able to confirm which titles will be on Blu-ray?  Thanks in advance.

Why are the good people of Seattle not campaigning for a DVD release of Harry In Your Pocket? That was filmed on location in Seattle. It's a good movie too. 

SUCH GOOD FRIENDS has been released to itunes (for sale only - and fullscreen), as has LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR, LITTLE DARLINGS, and ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH. GOODBAR and DARLINGS look ready for official release, but ONCE - while being anamorphic widescreen - appears to have been mastered from a terrible print.

These DVDs will be available on every internet retailer (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Deep Discount, etc.) and every key store (Borders, B&N, etc.)

Here are answers to a few other questions:

All of these films will be released on DVD first and some of the key titles will eventually be released on Blu-ray (Titles and dates will be determined at a later time). All titles will be remastered in high-definition from an original 35mm print or negative. They will all be released in their original aspect ratio (16x9).

I've got to say that the more I hear about this the better it sounds. Proper pressed discs (and the possibility of some BD) on general release is music to my ears.

..and as someone outside the USA, the titles being available from the usual retailers is music to mine.

Frank, this is great news, especially regarding CRACK IN THE WORLD.

Here are some other Paramount titles that I would love to purchase on DVD:

BLOOD AND ROSES (1960)
GUNN
TOO LATE BLUES
LITTLE DARLINGS
MAN-TRAP (1961, great neo film noir)
THE PSYCHOPATH (Amicus, 1966)
THE SLENDER THREAD
PROJECT X (1968, William Castle)
THE LONG DUEL

and some guilty pleasures:

GIRLS ON THE BEACH (1965)
DUEL OF THE TITANS
SHEILA LEVINE IS DEAD AND LIVING IN NEW YORK
Edited by Jobla - 2/20/10 at 4:18pm

Frank, will there be any extras for these discs?  Original trailers?  Commentaries?  I'm sure you have a very limited budget to begin with, but if opportunity arose to have people related to or knowledgeable on the films participate, would you be able to include them?  Or does your contract with Paramount forbid any added value material?

Thanks for the info!

The only thing I am worried about with this strategy is double dipping. Will there be advanced notice when the DVD comes out that there will be a Blu-ray of that specific title coming at a later time? Some people might be wary of buying the DVD as they might not be sure if it will be re-released on Blu-ray.

Thanks

Congratulations to Olive Films on this remarkable acquisition! I sincerely hope Crack in the World gets the blu ray treatment!
If you are considering future releases how about Colossus of New York?  A great Paramount sci fi classic much sadly neglected in the past.
I will be buying the lot when the appear in the summer!

This is a concern for me as well. It would be annoying to buy a title on DVD only for it to come out on Blu-ray a few months later. But on the other hand, I appreciate that the best way to judge potential Blu-ray sales is to see what sells well on DVD.

Maybe the best way to do it would be to have a system where people can vote for the titles they would be willing to buy on Blu-ray. But of course it is hard to come up with an internet voting system that is hard to rig.

The other issue is price, if the Blu-rays are going to be priced about the same as the DVDs, then I imagine quite a few people will just wait and buy the Blu-rays, which could create the false impression that a title wasn't that popular on DVD.

Will RIOT be the original R-rated release, or the later PG - edited version? Thanks

If we're talking guilty pleasures, then Assault On A Queen 1966 is the top of the list for me.

Great news and thank you, Frank, for taking the time to provide your insight. I think this is a great idea as some of the big studios try the DVD-R thing with catalog titles it provides a great opportunity for smaller companies to step in and do a better job addressing these titles. I look forward to watching Olive succeed with this.

HARRY IN YOUR POCKET is a UA title, no?  I made a DVD-R off of an airing on MGM-HD in 2008.  So, this would be a title to lobby MGM to release in their MOD program.