Warner Bros. To Not Exit Physical Media Production (1 Viewer)

DeWilson · Apr 23, 2021

https://www.thevulcanreporter.com/exclusives/warner-bros-exit-home-video-production/

Warner Bros. plans to shut down its physical media production department. Warner Bros-produced Films and Television series will still be getting Blu-Ray and DVD releases, though these releases will not be produced by Warner Bros themselves.

Moderator's Edit: The following is an updated report about Warner's plans with physical media from Bill Hunt's Digital Bits and some links to Bill's site and Deadline regarding Warner and Universal Home Entertainment Joint Venture:

Finally today, a number of you have asked us about online rumors (over the last few days) that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is basically shutting down their in-house physical media production operation. This is essentially true, but it’s also lacking important context. The reason they’re doing this, is that Warner Bros. and Universal are essentially merging their home entertainment operations. That new joint entity—Studio Distribution Services, which is now up and running after a slow ramp-up period in 2020—will produce and distribute Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD titles for both studios. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone; Warner and Universal essentially announced their intention to do this back in January of 2020 (see our report at the time here). (You can also read this Deadline report from the time.) The pandemic just slowed the process of getting it going down a bit. This, in theory, will allow them to do the same quality and level of work (in terms of releasing titles on disc) more efficiently and cost-effectively, allowing both Warner Bros. and Universal to stay in the physical media business for as long as possible. Unfortunately, it means that a lot of good people at each studio have been laid off (for example the dedicated Warner Archive Collection team at WB and much of the restoration team at Universal) as they combine their resources. But it can also be seen as a positive sign of each studio’s commitment to physical media in the long term. I strongly encourage you all to read the Deadline piece here. You should also know that I’ve confirmed just today that Studio Distribution Services is now in place and operating as intended. And there is no intention by either studio to discontinue their disc releases anytime soon. Hopefully, we’ll learn more about how all this is meant to work in the days and weeks ahead.

Bill’s on the latest Home Theater United podcast, plus an Apple digital purchase lawsuit & Warner and Universal combine their physical media operations

All right, we have a few key items to discuss here at The Bits today... First, Tim has posted his thoughts on Nico Mastorakis’ Death Has Blue Eyes (1976), newly-released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video. Do give it a look if you’re interested. Also for those of you might be interested, I had the great...

thedigitalbits.com

Universal & Warner Bros. Form Home Entertainment Joint Venture

Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. are entering into a North America ten-year joint venture with regard to their home entertainment arms. Separate from that deal, both studios are committing to li…

deadline.com

jcroy · Apr 23, 2021

Before I believe this, I would like to see an independent verification of this.

For example if Variety, Hollywood Reporter, LA Times, etc .... write their own stories with their own independent sources to confirm / deny the story.

DeWilson · Apr 23, 2021

jcroy said:
Before I believe this, I would like to see an independent verification of this.

For example if Variety, Hollywood Reporter, LA Times, etc .... write their own stories with their own independent sources to confirm / deny the story.

Jerry Beck has posted about this on social media.

Josh Steinberg · Apr 23, 2021

Yes, this is part and parcel with the previous announcement that Warner and Universal would be shuttering their own respective physical media departments and launching a joint venture to combine resources and output.

jcroy · Apr 23, 2021

Josh Steinberg said:
Yes, this is part and parcel with the previous announcement that Warner and Universal would be shuttering their own respective physical media departments and launching a joint venture to combine resources and output.

If Warner is no longer doing their own new-releases, then what is the function of this Warner/Universal distribution joint venture?

If I had to guess, is it just a conveyor belt to send the already evergreen Warner dvd catalog titles to places like wallyworld, amazon, target, etc ... and very little else ? (ie. $5 dump bin fodder).

Josh Steinberg · Apr 23, 2021

Warner new releases will come from the joint venture rather than the Warner label as it’s called today. That’s the point. Both entities are joining forces so the individual departments will no longer exist.

rdf8585 · Apr 23, 2021

Is anyone else seeing this news as a reason to stock up on Warner Archive releases while they're still available? Seems like anything is possible with their future availability now.

Robert Crawford · Apr 23, 2021

rdf8585 said:
Is anyone else seeing this news as a reason to stock up on Warner Archive releases while they're still available? Seems like anything is possible with their future availability now.

Aren’t people stacking up anyway?

rdf8585 · Apr 23, 2021

Robert Crawford said:
Aren’t people stacking up anyway?

It does seem like they were a lot of big hauls from the last 4/44 sale, but I'm imagining there would have been even more of those had this news come out before then. I know I would have ordered a few more things during that sale had I known this, then.

My concern now is these WA titles slowly vanish and become unavailable at some point, maybe in the not too distant future.

cineMANIAC · Apr 23, 2021

Any word on how this will impact third party licenses? Will Shout still be able to make deals, for instance? Frankly, I don't care if Warner decides to stop producing crap barebones Blu-rays as long as they'll still allow boutiques access to content. I rarely get excited about big-studio announcements these days anyway. And as much as I appreciated the occasional Archive announcement, most of the stuff they released I had no interest in.

jcroy · Apr 23, 2021

Josh Steinberg said:
Warner new releases will come from the joint venture rather than the Warner label as it’s called today. That’s the point. Both entities are joining forces so the individual departments will no longer exist.

They even have their own logo. Looking at some upcoming Warner or Universal dvd/bluray releases, the scans of the back covers have an "SDS Studio Distribution Services" logo in the spot where the Universal or Warner logo would have been in past dvd/bluray releases.

For example, such as the upcoming season 1 dvd set of the Animaniacs reboot.

bmasters9 · Apr 23, 2021

jcroy said:
They even have their own logo. Looking at some upcoming Warner or Universal dvd/bluray releases, the scans of the back covers have an "SDS Studio Distribution Services" logo in the spot where the Universal or Warner logo would have been in past dvd/bluray releases.

For example, such as the upcoming season 1 dvd set of the Animaniacs reboot.

I just looked up that name, and saw that logo:

SDS STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVICES - Studio Distribution Services LLC Trademark Registration

Trademark registration for Studio Distribution Services LLC. The mark consists of the stylized letters SDS next to the words STUDIO DISTRIBUTION SERVICES.

uspto.report

Alan Tully · Apr 23, 2021

cineMANIAC said:
Any word on how this will impact third party licenses? Will Shout still be able to make deals, for instance? Frankly, I don't care if Warner decides to stop producing crap barebones Blu-rays as long as they'll still allow boutiques access to content. I rarely get excited about big-studio announcements these days anyway. And as much as I appreciated the occasional Archive announcement, most of the stuff they released I had no interest in.

Ha, I have to say that your post perfectly matches your grumpy old man picture. I've long ago got the the point where the transfer is everything, & apart from just one or two releases, the WAC Blu-rays are stunning. But I wouldn't mind it if they licensed to a few more third parties, maybe one or two in the UK.

Thomas T · Apr 23, 2021

cineMANIAC said:
Frankly, I don't care if Warner decides to stop producing crap barebones Blu-rays as long as they'll still allow boutiques access to content ..... as much as I appreciated the occasional Archive announcement, most of the stuff they released I had no interest in.

Crap? The Archives have given we movie lovers the cream of the Warners, MGM and RKO libraries.

AlexNH · Apr 23, 2021

Bill Hunt has already explained this.

bujaki · Apr 23, 2021

Thomas T said:
Crap? The Archives have been give we movie lovers the cream of the Warners, MGM and RKO libraries.

Warner Archive even released a Deanna Durbin film!

Mark Mayes · Apr 23, 2021

The article I read says this:
"Furthermore, Warner Archive will still be kept around, for now. The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.’s library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the intention of putting previously unreleased catalog films on DVD for the first time"
It was on "The Vulkan."

dana martin · Apr 23, 2021

still waiting

At this point finish The Thin Man series first, then, I don't care if it's via the archive , through a deal with Criterion, Shout or some yet unknown entity, if they are willing to licenses out titles to another distributer, sort of similar as to how Sony does, I see this as beneficial for some of the smaller independents, willing to work deals. Still same as always their are going to be individuals who will always want a physical copy of an item.

rdf8585 · Apr 23, 2021

Mark Mayes said:
The article I read says this:
"Furthermore, Warner Archive will still be kept around, for now. The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.’s library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the intention of putting previously unreleased catalog films on DVD for the first time"
It was on "The Vulkan."

"For now."

The writing seems to be on the wall. And if it does stick around in the long run (I'm doubtful), maybe titles aren't released on disc format anymore. That would be a real shame to me.

Thomas T · Apr 23, 2021

rdf8585 said:
"For now."

The writing seems to be on the wall. And if it does stick around in the long run (I'm doubtful), maybe titles aren't released on disc format anymore. That would be a real shame to me.

I'm slowly trying to accumulate all the non blu ray MOD titles that the Archives distributed of lesser titles (like the Kay Francis movies) before they vanish completely. Most of these titles on Amazon say, "usually ships in 4 or 5 weeks" rather than "in stock". Deep Discount has a few of these older titles in stock.

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Warner Bros. To Not Exit Physical Media Production (1 Viewer)