Is the Classic-Film Blu-ray Market Drawing to a Close? (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Originally Posted by benbess



How does it look? Can't wait for The Gold Rush, City Lights, The Circus, etc.

The Great Dictator is next on the agenda, and it's coming very soon.

 

[Scott Calvert]

Wow, lots of doom-and-gloom. I don't get it. There are so many classic titles coming out I can't afford to buy them all. I have a ton of "classic" films on bluray. Below is my wishlist. Not all may be "classic" but it's more than I ever expected to have to choose from at this point in the format's life:


8 1/2

The Big Country (walmart)

Superman Collection

Smiles Of A Summer Night

Platoon

American Graffiti

Lolita

Barry Lyndon

Once Upon A Time In The West

Rio Lobo

Big Jake

The Comancheros

The Horse Soldiers

Some Like It Hot

The Manchurian Candidate

The Guns Of Navarone
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

South Pacific

White Christmas

Gigi

An American In Paris

Kiss Me Deadly

Twelve O'Clock High

The Cincinnati Kid

Grand Prix

The Hustler

Vampire Circus

The Man Who Would Be King

...And Justice For All

The Outlaw Josie Wales

Papillon

The Black Pirate

Machine-Gun McCain

Blake Edward's 10

Broadcast News

Senso

The Sweet Smell Of Success

The Music Man

Shock Corridor

The Naked Kiss

Robinson Crusoe On Mars

Metropolis

Vanishing Point

Steamboat Bill

M

Battleship Potemkin

The General

Once Upon A Time In America

The Pink Panther

Monty Python's Life Of Brian

Breathless

Rock N' Roll High School

Piranha

Modern Times

In Cold Blood

Charade

Blood Simple

The Omen

The Ray Harryhausen Collection

Planet Of The Apes

Young Frankenstein

MASH

Repulsion

The Sand Pebbles

Grease

Saturday Night Fever

The Warriors

From Russia With Love

Thunderball

This Is Spinal Tap

Paris, Texas

Being There

Cool Hand Luke

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The Graduate

Days Of Heaven

Fargo

The Fly

The Silence Of The Lambs

Walkabout

 

[benbess]

Scott: That's a great list. Yeah, for some the glass is half empty, but for me it's more than half full. There are so many classics I want to get that I don't have the space or the money for them. It's truly a golden age for movie lovers, imho. Every night I get to think about what perfectly restored 35mm print I want to put in my blu-ray projector...

 

[Charles Smith]

I wasn't online today till just now and this is the first thread I've read. I've kind of skimmed through the second half of these responses, so my question is: Did anyone take the time to read through the comments that followed that article? Most depressing thing I've done in quite a while.

 

[GMpasqua]

I must say, I own about 100 classic films on Blu-ray ..and most of them are vast improvements over the DVD in sound and picture. I would love to be able to get another 100 (they're coming but some at a snail's pace) I think SONY has all but stopped releasing classics ..we are lucky to get half a dozen a year (My last SONY purchase was "Bridge on the River Kwai" )


Others "The Professionals" "Tommy" "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" "Midnight Express" "Kramer vs Kramer" and "Ghostbusters" around out my pre 90 Sony titles but mostly because there aren't many out there besides the Sinbad films (Easy Rider, Dr Strangleove and In Cold Blood)

Would love to have:


"Lawrence of Arabia"

"Oliver"

"A Man For All Seasons"

"Funny Girl"

"1776"

"Nicholas and Alexandra"

"Bye Bye Birdie"

"From Here to Eternity"


Titles which have been through VHS, Laserdisc and DVD

 

[GMpasqua]

Warner and FOX are releasing many classics and MGM/UA has really come to bat in the last 8 months (3 in black and White):


[SIZE= 12px]Fiddler on the Roof[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]The Misfits[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Last Tango in Paris[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Rain Man[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]The Manchurian Candiate[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Some Like it Hot[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]The Thomas Crown Affair[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Thelma and Louise[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Moonstruck[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Hair[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Platoon[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]The Big Country[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]New York New York[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]The Long Riders[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]Dances With Wolves[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]West Side Story (in the fall)[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 12px]the incredible beautiful looking transfer of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang[/SIZE]


[SIZE= 12px]and a few mis steps (The Greatest Story Ever Told/Teen Wolf)[/SIZE]

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by benbess

Well, in general you are often right and your point is often valid, but....

George Feltenstein was one of the people who convinced WB to invest big in titles like Oz. He himself has said these titles will be (or even are) profitable, but it just takes longer than people think sometimes. I imagine they did take a permanent bath on A Star Is Born, which probably sold a small fraction of what Oz did, plus it probably cost just as much if not more to restore.


Maybe Feltenstein has been fired, but if so haven't I heard about it. Last I head the studio believes in and appreciates the work that he and his team is doing. Warner believes in its library.


But if he is fired (i hope not!) that would be a major support for your theory.


But even though I tend to be somewhat cynical and somewhat pessimistic, your point of view--again while making good points--is even more pessimistic than not only I am but maybe more pessimistic than what reality warrants right now.


Hard to tell. In any case, it's fun to discuss, and I enjoy reading your perceptive thoughts on all this...

It's not really my theory--it's based upon the link in the OP which stated that Wizard of Oz was not profitable on blu-ray. My theory is based upon the fact that films are expensive to restore to a quality worthy of blu-ray and short-sightedness will kill that industry. If Warners is the exception, that's great; but based on the article, I'd have to guess that most studios are only in it for the immediate profit.

 

[Charles Smith]

It's funny how this doom and gloom article appears just as my Blu-ray purchases seem to be (to toss out a number) 90% classics ... when I actually find myself overwhelmed with more recent and upcoming must-have titles than the budget should allow. In other words, to my eyes, the activity was finally picking up. Not that long ago it seemed like we'd never see many classics at all on Blu-ray. Of course I wish we were being flooded with them like in the respective heydays of VHS, LD and DVD, but right now I'm rather enjoying the pain of trying to keep up.

 

[Matt Hough]

It certainly seems as if Fox and MGM haven't gotten the message. Looking over the list of releases on Blu-ray for May reveals classics like Some Like It Hot, The Hustler, The Comancharos, The Horse Soldiers, Twelve O'Clock High, The Manchurian Candidate and The Big Country plus more recent (but still considered vault titles) like All the Right Moves, Taps, Tigerland and a bunch of reissues in new Digipack packaging (including possibly a new transfer for Patton along with Rocky, Butch Cassidy, The Usual Suspects, and others).

 

[Ronald Epstein]

On the one hand, it does seem as if the studios are still

steaming ahead with releasing classics on Blu-ray.


However, the DVD market is treated differently these

days. More classic titles are going to MOD because

of the fear they won't sell well retail.


I don't think there's going to be a problem with the
major classics getting released. However, I don't see

that Blu-ray will ever sport the vast catalog of classics

that DVD has. Too many titles just won't benefit from

a high resolution release and I can't see the studios

spending money to restore them.



Visit our

DVD,

BLU-RAY and

3D REVIEW ARCHIVES

 

[Rob_Ray]

Originally Posted by Ed Lachmann



The day I have to download movies I want from iTunes and wait the hundred or so years for a two hour plus 1080p feature to get there is the day I stop owning or collecting them at all. I would love Warner Archives to press or burn and sell me the blu-rays, however. I will never join the "hard drive" movie club, I'm afraid. Just me. Lost too many corrupted files and had too many hard drive break downs to put any faith in it.

I agree. And not all of us are into computers. Many of my older retired collector friends who spend a fortune on Warner Archive titles don't even have computers and wouldn't know how to download anything if their life depended on it. They don't even use computers to place their Archive orders but rely on the old-fashioned telephone. This is a market that can't yet be ignored. Maybe in another ten years but not yet. Streaming hasn't been around long enough to become ubiquitous.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley





It's not really my theory--it's based upon the link in the OP which stated that Wizard of Oz was not profitable on blu-ray. My theory is based upon the fact that films are expensive to restore to a quality worthy of blu-ray and short-sightedness will kill that industry. If Warners is the exception, that's great; but based on the article, I'd have to guess that most studios are only in it for the immediate profit.

I think the reason GWtW and WoO didn't do as well was because when they were being advertised they were only sold in the "box of junk" version. If they had released it day and date with a "regular" version I bet it would have sold much better. If it wasn't profitable to release classic films on BD, Kino and Criterion wouldn't be doing it.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Adam Gregorich




I think the reason GWtW and WoO didn't do as well was because when they were being advertised they were only sold in the "box of junk" version. If they had released it day and date with a "regular" version I bet it would have sold much better. If it wasn't profitable to release classic films on BD, Kino and Criterion wouldn't be doing it.

I agree with Adam, I think Warner had a bad release strategy with those two titles by releasing them with an expensive pricepoint instead of making them immediately available at a more reasonable price of $20 or less. I consider myself a knowledgeable BR consumer so I was able to purchase both titles from the UK at a more reasonable price because I didn't have a need for the "box of junk" version. Something tells me that most consumers feel that same way about these kind of releases.

 

[Doug Otte]

Originally Posted by Chas in CT

I wasn't online today till just now and this is the first thread I've read. I've kind of skimmed through the second half of these responses, so my question is: Did anyone take the time to read through the comments that followed that article? Most depressing thing I've done in quite a while.

I avoided the comments until now. Yes; very depressing. There's a lot of ignorance expressed there.


Doug

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein REVIEW ARCHIVES[/b]

I beg to differ on that particular point.







Crawdaddy

 

[ReggieW]

I really don't like what happened with The Ten Commandments. Paramount should've released a 3-disc version at the $59.95 price-point just as Lionsgate did for Apocalypse Now. I have no problem paying more for my favorite films when done properly, but asking me to fork over extra for an oversized box and a bunch of trinkets I don't want is another thing. I think that Bill Hunt nails it when he says that many execs in these studio marketing departments know nothing about these films. I mean, is there really that big of a market for The Ten Commandments to be packaged this way? The die-hard cinephiles definitely want the doc and the silent version, but imho, these are exctly the kind of people who don't want a big box of gimmicks to go along with it with a premium price. When Paramount releases a more realistic 3-disc version or if/when it turns up this way in the UK, then I'll buy it.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I like the idea of burned Blu discs, but what is the compatibility rate?


It seems that prices have dropped considerably - a 10-disc spindle of BD-25s on Amazon goes for $20 ($2 a disc), which is reasonable.

Originally Posted by Ed Lachmann



The day I have to download movies I want from iTunes and wait the hundred or so years for a two hour plus 1080p feature to get there is the day I stop owning or collecting them at all. I would love Warner Archives to press or burn and sell me the blu-rays, however. I will never join the "hard drive" movie club, I'm afraid. Just me. Lost too many corrupted files and had too many hard drive break downs to put any faith in it.

 

[dana martin]

Streaming, or download I think not, I want a physical copy; Too many things can go wrong, crash hard drive, I have been burnt too many times from iTunes, to buy something again; and why did the studios back this format during the format wars if they are not willing to put out releases that would do well. I don’t give a damn about 90% of what comes out of Hollywood these days, but catalog does do well, just look at Criterion and Kino, I think the major studios, would do well to maybe put someone in charge of catalog titles that knows what the hell the films are about, instead of some corporate suit who has no idea of film or the impact it has had.



And its not that I have a big aversion to the so-called big box of junk, I have bought a few, but as soon as just the disc set containing all the same came on the market, I bought that and gave the box set as a gift to one of my kids. And yes some of the under 25 crowd knows what the classics are and are just a particular.



At a fair price point, and a great release, anything will sale, and I will state this as well, yes older B&W titles benefit from this greatly. Sony needs to get off of there rears, where is the Capra titles, WB was rumored to be doing Marx Brothers, Universal Hitchcock and Classic Universal Horror, (WB could do some more Hitchcock as well) Fox/MGM don’t drop the ball on shoddy transfers, (ahem, Greatest Story Ever Told).



The niche markets are doing good things Synapse and Blue Underground, just wish that Anchor Bay could once again be the poor mans Criterion, and be like they were in the DVD boom.



Case in point, this is the format that won, it needs to have product and just because it is wifi able doesn’t mean that I want to stream anything. I want to see Johnny Weissmuller Tarzans’ in 1080p, I want to see Charlie Chan (Fox are you listening) in 1080p.




Ron[COLOR= black], I have to side with Crawdaddy on this, if taking from the negative, I see every one benefitting greatly. It’s like the statement I read in another thread that someone thinks HD is a higher resolution than film, the person who said that might want to get out of the business of showing films and start stocking shelves someplace. [/COLOR]

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by ReggieW

I really don't like what happened with The Ten Commandments. Paramount should've released a 3-disc version at the $59.95 price-point just as Lionsgate did for Apocalypse Now. I have no problem paying more for my favorite films when done properly, but asking me to fork over extra for an oversized box and a bunch of trinkets I don't want is another thing. I think that Bill Hunt nails it when he says that many execs in these studio marketing departments know nothing about these films. I mean, is there really that big of a market for The Ten Commandments to be packaged this way? The die-hard cinephiles definitely want the doc and the silent version, but imho, these are exctly the kind of people who don't want a big box of gimmicks to go along with it with a premium price. When Paramount releases a more realistic 3-disc version or if/when it turns up this way in the UK, then I'll buy it.

Unlike WB at least Parmount gave us a version that had the film and some basic extras as an alternative to the huge box set.

 

[GMpasqua]

Burning disc is just the cheap way out - for everyone. It may have to be for obscure titles that won't sell much. But a film like "A Day at the Races" or most Marx Bros hits would not fall into this category. They would have to be transfer correctly to blu. Either that or fade into oblivion