UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - Chinatown -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

And thus far have seen nothing being done to cure the situation. We could easily do with a third fewer 4k releases,

Nothing is going to change based on what any of us post here.

 

[bobclampett]

And for re-prints, you wait in line. Someone in the thread noted the lack of product as “ineptitude” on the part of the studio. I disagree.

It’s merely the lay of the land, with a myriad of unnecessary 4k product being pressed.

I don’t buy for a minute that a pressing plant is dictating to Paramount or any other studio how many discs they can have. Whoever is in charge of procurement at Paramount grossly underestimated demand or it’s a corporate strategy to limit supply.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

With the state of the disc market in 2024, every single major studio and smaller boutique is doing smaller print runs. No one wants to be stuck with excess inventory. It’s part of right-sizing the business which will it allow it to continue in some form. Printing too many copies at once is a money losing proposition; it costs money to handle excess inventory that can wipe out razor thin profit margins. This is the way of this industry now - smaller runs with repressings as necessary.

 

[plektret]

Most problematic were the early 4k releases of b/w UA films a couple of years ago.

But that was solved internally by a gentleman at the post facility.

I absolutely loved the "all-grain" look! It might not be historically accurate, but I thought it was aesthetically pleasing.

 

[sbjork]

With the state of the disc market in 2024, every single major studio and smaller boutique is doing smaller print runs. No one wants to be stuck with excess inventory. It’s part of right-sizing the business which will it allow it to continue in some form. Printing too many copies at once is a money losing proposition; it costs money to handle excess inventory that can wipe out razor thin profit margins. This is the way of this industry now - smaller runs with repressings as necessary.

We're trying to get a definite answer on whether or not there's still another print run coming. I suspect that there is, even if Paramount set an absolute limit of 10,000 for the final tally, for the reasons you list. Again, assuming that they really meant that this would be absolutely limited to 10,000, I'm skeptical that they ran all 10,000 in a single batch.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

We're trying to get a definite answer on whether or not there's still another print run coming. I suspect that there is, even if Paramount set an absolute limit of 10,000 for the final tally, for the reasons you list. Again, assuming that they really meant that this would be absolutely limited to 10,000, I'm skeptical that they ran all 10,000 in a single batch.

My educated guess is that there’s absolutely no way they printed all 10,000 at once. Most catalog titles are now selling hundreds of copies, low thousands at the higher end. And I get that Chinatown is an acclaimed, well thought of film that was a critical and commercial success, but it’s also a 50 year old film in a format that is not what it once was.

A lot of what’s happening now with movies on disc has already happened with music on vinyl, and in the vinyl record world, it’s completely common for labels to announce a limit on print runs but to press them in batches of 500 or 1000. And there have been plenty of releases where they didn’t need to press the announced limit to satisfy demand.

I think we’re going to have to accept as the new normal that not everyone who orders every title is going to get it on the first print run sometimes and that sometimes the print run might cover preorders and not much else, as they wait to see what the demand actually looks like. It’s no longer affordable for anyone to get stuck with hundreds or thousands of excess units anymore.

There was the whole thing with Oppenheimer in the fall when it sold out the initial run and the hot take on that was that physical media was making a resounding comeback, when the actual answer was the much simpler “they made less copies than they used to, but Nolan evangelizes for physical media so a disproportionate number of consumers opted for disc compared to other comparable new release titles”.

 

[mark brown]

I got my 4k Chinatown yesterday from Amazon

 

[titch]

We're trying to get a definite answer on whether or not there's still another print run coming. I suspect that there is, even if Paramount set an absolute limit of 10,000 for the final tally, for the reasons you list. Again, assuming that they really meant that this would be absolutely limited to 10,000, I'm skeptical that they ran all 10,000 in a single batch.

I really enjoyed your in-depth analysis over on The Digital Bits!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

It's probably or will end up as some kinda downward spiral between studios/distributers/dealers/etc not wanting to be stuck w/ excessive inventory *and* disc manufacturers not wanting to have their facilities too underutilized, sitting around waiting and not making enough $ themselves (and so roll back they're printing capacity to do something else instead perhaps)...

That definitely already began to happen anyway...

_Man_

 

[davidmatychuk]

I watched my copy of the magnificent 4K "Chinatown" last night, after which I popped in "The Two Jakes" just to have a quick look at it and ended up watching the whole thing. It is indeed identical to the earlier Blu-Ray, other than the label, but what surprised me on this viewing was how well "The Two Jakes" played after a fresh viewing of "Chinatown". It's still not a great movie, clumsy in places especially compared with the most elegant of all modern noirs, but there's a lot to appreciate in it as a sequel. What a fantastic release!

 

[Konstantinos]

This is going for crazy prices!
I just checked amazon and it is sold at $400!!!
I hope it gets re-issued soon. Can't believe there are no more copies so soon.

 

[mskaye]

This is going for crazy prices!
I just checked amazon and it is sold at $400!!!
I hope it gets re-issued soon. Can't believe there are no more copies so soon.

Not surprised at all. It's a movie practically on the level of The Godfather for iconic popularity and has "must see" cache with all film lovers. As others have said, they would rather make 10,000 and sell them out than print 100,000 and not sell out. It's just the economics of the business. I'm sure there will be more. The demand is there.

 

[PatrickDA]

I loved it with the DV disabled. I've never liked DV. Now, HDR is wonderful.

 

[sbjork]

 

[PatrickDA]

This is going for crazy prices!
I just checked amazon and it is sold at $400!!!
I hope it gets re-issued soon. Can't believe there are no more copies so soon.

um....I've noticed you wait too long to buy things. LOL! Jump on stuff as soon as you can.

 

[Konstantinos]

um....I've noticed you wait too long to buy things. LOL! Jump on stuff as soon as you can.

Yeah. I wait to see first reviews and screenshots to decide if I'm gonna buy.
And I can't buy everything I want when they are just released.
Nevertheless, I pre-ordered Arrow's The Silence of the lambs and SS's The Hitcher, because I definitely didn't want to miss out.

 

[titch]

um....I've noticed you wait too long to buy things. LOL! Jump on stuff as soon as you can.

It's not necessarily that simple, even for those of us overseas members, who regularly purchase large numbers of titles, on or soon after, the release date. Both US Amazon and UK Amazon were sold out of Chinatown before the release date, but I was able to get hold of the UK Chinatown via a local reseller. I don't wait for reviews - when I order, I order once a month, 10-20 titles at a time. Shipping is far too expensive to pre-order and ship titles overseas on an individual basis. Quite often US Amazon doesn't even allow pre-orders of some titles - the 4K UHD of Blue Velvet being a recent example.

I always order Arrow Video Limited Edition titles directly from their website, as Amazon often doesn't ship them overseas.

 

[Konstantinos]

I don't wait for reviews

And if you don't like what you see you re-sell them?

 

[titch]

And if you don't like what you see you re-sell them?

Never. It's extremely rare that I really dislike a new release so much, that I want to get rid of it. I send almost all of my old blu-rays, after upgrading to newer versions, to a friend. He doesn't care as much as I do about picture quality and doesn't have a 4K set-up. Re-selling films and music isn't really much of an option in Norway. Postal charges are prohibitively expensive - it simply isn't worth the time and effort for me.

 

[Sam Favate]

Amazon no longer has this available. They list a third party seller who is listing it at $300. No joke.