Criterion and StudioCanal

[mfunk9786]

Sorry if this was addressed before, but is Elevator to the Gallows now OOP? See: BN, Amazon, etc.

[swo17]

I would say it's safe as long as it still shows up in print on the Criterion website. See also: Floating Weeds, Tokyo Story

[Napier]

I'd also wager it's the first Malle to get a Blu-ray upgrade.

[editman]

Sorry if this was addressed before, but is Elevator to the Gallows now OOP? See: BN, Amazon, etc.

Funny you should mention it:

Hi Jon,

Is the Criterion DVD of Elevator to the Gallows going out of print? I recently tried to order it and realised that at least 3 different online retail stores (Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, DVDEmpire) have listed the title as discontinued. Another one (DVDPlanet) has been listed as out of stock for months.

Just curious of why it's become such a hard-to-find title all of a sudden.

Thank you for your email.

Not to worry, the title is temporarily out of stock because we will soon begin issuing it in a different case. Unfortunately I don't have and exact date of when to expect it back in stock, but it will probably be around six weeks or so.

I hope this information is helpful! Thank you for supporting Criterion and please let me know if you have any more questions!

Best,

Jon Mulvaney

[Tom Hagen]

Hmmmm the end is nigh for the double wides?

[knives]

Hmmmm the end is nigh for the double wides?

Yes, yes. I've been waiting for this day for too long. Now I just hope they also put it out on Blu.

[matrixschmatrix]

Hopefully that's the explanation for the continued absence of Stories of Floating Weeds and the Killers, too. I wonder if they're going to pull their back catalog a few titles at a time to re-issue them, so not too many go out of print, or if those just happen to be the ones where people already ran out of stock.

[Minkin]

For those of you who missed out on all the deals/BN sales and whatever else.. you can still find a few of the OOP titles over at Facets.

For instance, here's That Obscure Object of Desire

You might not be saving off of MSRP, but at least you will be supporting a company that everyone hates.

[Professor Wagstaff]

For anyone interested, I noticed that Amazon has a few copies of The Orphic Trilogy and Alphaville back in stock.

[teddyleevin]

For anyone interested, I noticed that Amazon has a few copies of The Orphic Trilogy and Alphaville back in stock.

What do we think the chances of a better DVD of The Orphic Trilogy coming out any time soon might be?

[knives]

There's no chance of them coming out together and I doubt SC would deal with the two they have.

[jwd5275]

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any idea of for how long the StudioCanal / Lionsgate deal is for?
(This may be answered elsewhere, however I'm not quite sure where, so please humor me...)

It looks as if the StudioCanal blu collection is dead and I don't see Lionsgate issuing StudioCanal titles on DVD... so how long do we have to wait until they perhaps renegotiate with Criterion or some other company that will actually put out their titles in the US?

[ianungstad]

I'm sure their deal with Canal has been considered fruitful, if only to extend the license on films like Terminator 2, Basic Instinct, Total Recall, etc.

They've already shown with Republic Pictures that they are willing to license exclusive rights to a library of hundreds of films just to have rights to about a dozen.

You think all those foreign language Miramax titles are ever going to see the light of day again at Lionsgate? They'll keep renewing their deal with Miramax just to keep Pulp Fiction, The Crow, Kill Bill in their library.

Lionsgate stinks.

[rrenault]

Well Lionsgate did release Contempt and Diva, which has never been released by Criterion but is owned by studio canal, so I don't think there's a complete aversion to releasing foreign films whose financial viability is dubious at best.

[jwd5275]

But when it comes to releasing anything pre-1960 (or should I say pre-1980 that doesn't contain Brigitte Bardot) we are all SOL.

This is not about the awful quality of a Lionsgate release, it is that these extremely wonderful and important films are not ever going to see the light of day again, crumby release or not. I know that I may be in the minority, but I would rather a film be available in bare-bones Liongate (or some other equally awful company) release so people at least have the option of seeing the movie, albeit in significantly inferior quality.

So now films like Grand Illusion, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Le Corbeau are all effectively held hostage out-of-print indefinitely.

[rrenault]

Grand Illusion they may release. It's a well known and high profile enough film. It's been on the short list of potential future additions to the Studio Canal collection if they ever do release more films on that line.

[MichaelB]

Well Lionsgate did release Contempt and Diva, which has never been released by Criterion but is owned by studio canal, so I don't think there's a complete aversion to releasing foreign films whose financial viability is dubious at best.

I can't speak for Contempt, but Diva was one of the biggest arthouse hits of the 1980s - certainly in Europe, and its presence in the US doesn't seem to have been that low-key either.

When I worked in repertory programming in the early 1990s, it was as close to a guaranteed cash cow as anything in our armoury, and I suspect if I was to tot up the individual titles that I booked most frequently, Diva would be pretty close to the top of the list.

[rrenault]

In either case, what's Studio Canal's motive in dealing exclusively with a single North American distributor?

[MichaelB]

Lazy convenience, I suspect.

[knives]

I believe it was a mixture of branding and Lionsgate handing over a larger lump of cash than anyone else.

[rrenault]

But why would it be in the interest of Lionsgate to hand over all that cash if they are not even going to release most of the films in the studio canal catalog?

[knives]

Terminator alone probably pays the bills.

[rrenault]

Or perhaps Studio Canal has simply given up on both the Studio Canal collection and it's relationship with Lionsgate without bringing awareness of the proceedings to the public? They haven't even recently announced any Euro-side SC Collection releases, and the Meridian Collection has what...3 titles? On top of all this, if criterion were to get back the rights to many of these titles, I doubt it would happen in one fell swoop. They'd probably bring back like 2 or 3 in print at a time.

[knives]

In that case has anyone asked? It is improbable, but I'm hoping that means it isn't impossible.

[rrenault]

Also, Army of Shadows, Le Cercle Rouge, Last Year at Marienbad, Mafioso, La Haine, and Le Doulos are all still in print on criterion, and they're going to be releasing Leon Morin, Priest.