Anchor Bay sold to unnamed buyer (1 Viewer)

[Robert Ringwald]

New Line Cinema! Now that would be pretty good.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Well, it would put them under the AOL Time Warner umbrella. Sure, that would probably result in Anchor Bay doing Brisco County Junior (along with Warner's Hammer titles), but would Universal and other rights-holders be so eager to work with them?

 

[Bryan_Bortz]

Lets PRAY it is not Universal...

-Owl

 

[soop.spoon]

And then 1 out of every 3 titles will be fullscreen.

Not even close. Probably more like 1 out of every 15.

 

[Jan Strnad]

As I said in another thread, what if it's Mark Cuban of HDNet? He's purchased the Landmark Theatres (art houses) and has big plans for going digital, offering DVDs in the lobby, etc. A DVD producer/distributor would fit his business strategy very well.

Jan

 

[Douglas R]

According to videobusiness.com the buyer is IDT Media (whoever they are).

 

[Malcolm R]

Part of IDT Corporation, "a multi-national carrier, telephone and technology company."

Here's a press release about the recent formation of IDT Entertainment

 

[Haden]

So is that a good thing or bad??

 

[David Lambert]

Most of you know IDT as the owners of MainFrame, who are the folks behind CGI shows like Beast Wars, Reboot, Heavy Gear, and all those recent Barbie videos.

 

[danak]

IDT? Are these the same folks that bought the online service Genie from GE and ran it into the ground? If so, this may not be good news.

Dana

 

[Rob Lutter]

maybe Reboot season sets?

 

[Ted Todorov]

Very bad news (the quote is from the Yahoo biz article linked above):

Winstar Holdings, LLC is the IDT subsidiary through which we provide broadband and telephony services to commercial and governmental customers through a fixed-wireless and fiber infrastructure.

Winstar lest we forget is the ex-parent company of Fox-Lorber, responsible for a large number of the worst DVD ever made.

A sad day indeed for cult & foreign film fans...

Ted

 

[soop.spoon]

Oh man that is TERRIBLE news. Well, Anchor Bay had a great run and hopefully Blue Underground will continue their recent greatness.

Hopefully the people and companies who have licensed material to Anchor Bay in the past will look to Image, Synapse, All Day or Blue Underground in the future.

 

[Lance Nichols]

Dear god, please say you are joking... Winstar owns them now?!?

*gulp*

 

[Damin J Toell]

Winstar owns them now?!?

No!

Anchor Bay has been acquired by IDT Entertainment. This is an entirely different subsidiary of IDT Corp. than the one that owns Winstar. As IDT describes their subsidiaries:

"IDT Media, Inc. is the IDT subsidiary principally responsible for the Company's initiatives in radio broadcasting, new video technologies and print media. IDT Entertainment, Inc. is the IDT subsidiary focused on developing, acquiring, producing and (with the Anchor Bay acquisition) distributing computer-generated and traditionally animated productions and other productions for the film, broadcast and direct-to-consumer markets. Winstar Holdings, LLC, which provides service under the IDT Solutions brand, is the IDT subsidiary through which we provide broadband and telephony services to commercial and governmental customers through a fixed-wireless and fiber infrastructure. Net2Phone, Inc., a subsidiary of IDT Corporation, is a leading provider of high-quality global retail Voice over IP services, either directly or via a partner."

As you can see, they are entirely separate companies. Winstar provides commercial and governmental telephone and broadband services. It has no connection to IDT's entertainment subsidiary, and will have no connection to Anchor Bay. Winstar does not even work on any entertainment-related projects anymore, and so will have no involvement whatsoever in Anchor Bay. Anchor Bay will not be run by Winstar any more than it will be run by Net2Phone. The people who work at Anchor Bay now (Michael Felsher, et al) will remain there. Their discs will not suddenly turn into Fox Lorber discs.

DJ

 

[Jon Martin]

Let's be fair though, Fox Lorber / Winstar was one of the earliest DVD companies out there. Some of the first DVDs released were by them. Those early ones were not the best quality as a lot of early DVD releases by other companies were.

A lot of the later Winstar titles were great quality, nothing to complain about.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I like Anchor Bay, but don't forget some of their quality control issues. Remember Opera?

Anywho, I'd be hard pressed to think that with the sell, that management would be fired afterwards. Aren't they the guys that ultimately decide how a DVD turns out? Or am I not understanding the business?

 

[Mitch Stevens]

Since now that Anchor Bay has been bought, does that mean that this new company will release another 50 versions of Halloween & Evil Dead?

 

[David Lambert]

Not exactly, Mitch. It means that they will release a CGI direct-to-DVD film called "Barbie and the Evil Dead".


I jest...