When will we have more Robert Altman on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Patrick McCart]

Yes. THREE WOMEN...and MCCABE & MRS MILLER...oops, the WB...little chance, I guess...

It's coming out this year and DVDFile has had the specs for a while.

 

[Mark Edward Heuck]

Just to update who to be asking for what:

Warner Bros. now owns BREWSTER McCLOUD, along with COUNTDOWN.

MGM controls THIEVES LIKE US, VINCENT & THEO, FOOL FOR LOVE, and should still own O.C. & STIGGS (1987 I believe is the cutoff year for the titles that were bought by Turner) While United Artists Classics did release STREAMERS to theatres, I believe the rights for that are held by American Playhouse, as MGM did not issue the OP video (Media did)

Paramount may now own COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN, as the copyright on all previous releases has listed it as a Viacom production. However, its last tape issue was on the Forum label, owned by Jonathan Krane's M.C.E.G. company, whose assets are now part of MGM, so that may be confused. Paramount may also now own THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK, whose last legitimate video release was on the NTA label, which became Republic Pictures. (Inexplicably, this film has popped up on many PD labels of dubious quality) And naturally, they are still sitting on POPEYE.

I would give my eyeteeth to find someone willing to claim the copyright on IMAGES. Columbia no longer owns it (it was a negative pickup in the first place), while it was an early Hemdale production it did not go to MGM with the other Hemdale titles, and "Lion's Gate" refers to Altman's then company, not the current Canadian indie film behemoth.

Anchor Bay has video rights to BEYOND THERAPY.

New Line's deal with Criterion for laser usually resulted in them owning the supplements instead of Criterion, which means feasibly they should be the ones doing a SHORT CUTS DVD. (They did port over most of the extras found on the LD of THE PLAYER)

And Fox still holds the motherlode -- 3 WOMEN, HEALTH, A PERFECT COUPLE, A WEDDING, and QUINTET. Since they will likely insist there is a limited appeal for these titles, perhaps they should consider doing a "box set only" approach for these films. I would think hardcore Altman fans, like me, who are willing to forgive the flaws in these films, would just as soon have the entire set than pick and choose them. I admit, a bit dirty-poolish, but you know this would help guarantee sales on the more difficult titles.

 

[LarryDavenport]

Almost a year has I'm still waiting for The Long Goodbye .

 

[David Lawrence]

Another vote for most of these titles, especially The Long Goodbye.

 

[Dick]

I expect to see THIEVES LIKE US come from MGM in the not too distant future, if they aren't first bought by another conglomerate less interested in getting the United Artists catalog titles out on DVD.

 

[PatrickL]

Paramount may now own COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN

I would love to know if this is the case. Like STREAMERS and IMAGES, this is a title with a totally convuluted rights history. Also, it was shot on Super 16, and I worry about the condition it's in at this point.

I won't even dream of ever having some of the tv work Altman did, like THE LAUNDROMAT or THE CAINE MUTINY COURT MARTIAL or BLACK AND BLUE.

Just thought I'd mention, for anyone with multi-region capability, that a couple of the films discussed in this thread *are* available in other regions.

SHORT CUTS is available from Spain, in an anamorphic transfer. VINCENT & THEO was issued both in the UK and in Spain, but there's no comparison, the UK version is far superior and is letterboxed. There are a couple of versions of KANSAS CITY out there - I have the Japanese which is OAR but a mediocore transfer. STREAMERS is being released on disc in about 4 weeks in the UK - I'm looking forward to that one a lot!