Business Models: Twilight Time vs. Other Boutique Labels

[domino harvey]

Moe, there will always be a market for selling overpriced things to people who don't know better. I know I've already posted about this recently, but it still blows my mind that there's a set of PD movies that would run you maybe $10 tops anywhere else online being sold by Time Life for $99. There will also be a market for the discriminating cineaste. And a market for everything in-between. Twilight Time's model is catch as catch can-- the answer to my rhetorical question is that there is no intended audience, which explains their all over the map releases. I don't think it's a problem and if you go back to the beginnings of the Twilight Time thread you'll find I was one of the few defenders of the label when the mood turned really south here a while back, but you can't go around acting like a Venn diagram of TT customers and region-free cinema lovers is two circles that don't touch

[Moe Dickstein]

The only tweak I'd make to what you say is that there are the titles that the label was started to get out there, and the others that are the ones that seem to be off brand, which were requests by the licensing studios for them to release.

I don't mean to suggest the circles don't overlap, merely that people seem to overly discount those outside the cineaste circle. That's all

[R0lf]

Agreed. As an Australian, I had to go region-free in order to watch Criterion blus. I'm also able to watch Twilight Time releases, of which I have a few. I have 2 region-free players - a Panasonic that I paid to get chipped (as much as the cost of the player) and a more recent Oppo that plays anything and everything. I guess it's probably easy to ignore the need for a region-free player in the US - but I've collected a substantial number of Masters of Cinema blurays which are usually the definitive editions. Shipping costs and waiting to receive discs in the post are a part of life if you want the best. Then there are cheap locally available discs that I can get of titles that Twilight Time offer - I can get Sleepless in Seattle and Philadelphia, for example (if I was so inclined) for about $10 each. The other day I picked up Preminger's Exodus on blu for about $12, which I don't think has yet been released outside of Oz. There are great benefits to being region-free, for the discerning buyer.

And going region free is exceptionally easy for any Australian considering that most $50 no name brand blu ray players you can pick up from places like Big W allow you to change region back and forth. I can only imagine it must be harder in other countries than it is here?

[knives]

Yes, due to some differing laws.

[bugsy_pal]

Agreed. As an Australian, I had to go region-free in order to watch Criterion blus. I'm also able to watch Twilight Time releases, of which I have a few. I have 2 region-free players - a Panasonic that I paid to get chipped (as much as the cost of the player) and a more recent Oppo that plays anything and everything. I guess it's probably easy to ignore the need for a region-free player in the US - but I've collected a substantial number of Masters of Cinema blurays which are usually the definitive editions. Shipping costs and waiting to receive discs in the post are a part of life if you want the best. Then there are cheap locally available discs that I can get of titles that Twilight Time offer - I can get Sleepless in Seattle and Philadelphia, for example (if I was so inclined) for about $10 each. The other day I picked up Preminger's Exodus on blu for about $12, which I don't think has yet been released outside of Oz. There are great benefits to being region-free, for the discerning buyer.

And going region free is exceptionally easy for any Australian considering that most $50 no name brand blu ray players you can pick up from places like Big W allow you to change region back and forth. I can only imagine it must be harder in other countries than it is here?

Yes, I believe it can be done very cheaply here in Oz - although I didn't go down that route. I got my Panasonic chipped before I ever new about the super-cheap region-free options, then I bought an Oppo to replace my defunct Sony SACD player, which had the added benefit of being a brilliant bluray player.

[zedz]

(in fact all of my Spanish purchases beyond one boxset have been for studio pictures)

Way off topic, but two words for you: Pere Portabella.

[zedz]

I imagine though for someone to be knowledgeable enough to know who TT are, want to buy their (blu-ray product), and know where to do the purchasing are at least savvy enough to know who Criterion are.

Anyway, isn't it vastly simpler for an American consumer to buy, say, an MoC or BFI disc from Amazon.uk than it is to buy anything at all from Twilight Time? (Of course, for non-US customers, the gulf of difficulty is exponentially greater.)

[Moe Dickstein]

No, because so long as you don't care about the extra $5 markup you can get TT discs straight from Amazon.

[knives]

(in fact all of my Spanish purchases beyond one boxset have been for studio pictures)

Way off topic, but two words for you: Pere Portabella.

I literally had it in my cart for about a week before it disappeared. I really want to watch Cuadecuc, Vampir.

[MichaelB]

No, because so long as you don't care about the extra $5 markup you can get TT discs straight from Amazon.

You forgot to factor in the high likelihood of Customs import charges (plus compulsory £8 "handling fee) if you go down that route. I know people who've ended up paying close to £50 ($75) for TT discs - including, in one particularly tragic case, a copy of The Fury a couple of weeks before Arrow's announcement.

Which is why I don't own any TT discs myself.

[Moe Dickstein]

I was referring to US customers.

[EddieLarkin]

If that's the only reason Michael, then you and other UK users may find the following worth repeating:

All SAE packages to the UK that are 4 items or fewer are marked under the customs limit, as all individual items are invoiced as $5. All of my packages have arrived this way, with no resulting customs fees.

If anyone has got hit with charges, it's almost certainly due to them selecting insured delivery, which for purposes of the insurance, have to be marked at true value. Their insurance is unnecessary and a rip off anyway, so people should avoid this option.

I've never paid more than £24 for a single TT title, and that's when buying singly. With bulk purchases (2 to 4) it's more like £21, and my last two orders averaged out to £18 for each item as I got a free title with both orders (from their last two promotions).

[MichaelB]

I've never paid more than £24 for a single TT title, and that's when buying singly. With bulk purchases (2 to 4) it's more like £21, and my last two orders averaged out to £18 for each item as I got a free title with both orders (from their last two promotions).

That's still not a particularly powerful incentive - I try not to pay more than that for stacked Criterions, never mind virtually barebones discs!

[EddieLarkin]

True, it's not exactly a great price for any disc, but it's a much better situation than the idea that UK buyers have no option but to pay £50 a pop. If that was the case I wouldn't have a single TT title.

Just for the record, although a lot of their earlier titles are bare bones (which is were this impression comes from), most recent releases have a decent amount of supplements, including a few that are veritably stacked. Take a look at Our Man Flint, In Like Flint, Christine, Lost Horizon, Blue Lagoon, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing or Major Dundee. And for The Disappearance, TT actually produced their own supplements (shocking, I know)!

[FrauBlucher]

Interview with Nick Redman.

[pointless]

Interview with Nick Redman.

Interesting bits include a four title per month minimum starting in 2014, and sometimes five per month. The MGM/UA deal stipulates two titles a month from them.

The 3000 units per title has nothing to do with artist’s residuals but just a number chosen to match that the known safe target number for movie soundtrack releases.

[captveg]

LOL - my pointing out of stats on HTF for catalog titles re: Warner vs. Fox got brought up. Sorry if Jason X is not old enough to be considered a catalog title to some, but my point was that to the STUDIO it is (heck - the upcoming Director's Cut of Argo is now considered a catalog title), and is likely to sell far better than many other deep catalog titles that I would certainly rather own, too.

[Moe Dickstein]

I think the bigger difference is, are Par titles included in the WB count?

[warren oates]

The 3000 units per title has nothing to do with artist’s residuals but just a number chosen to match that the known safe target number for movie soundtrack releases.

Which is basically an admission that they pulled this arbitrary so-called "break even" number of 3,000 out of their collective butts. Since when does the soundtrack collector market from 10-15 years ago graph onto to the present day DVD/Blu-ray collector market now in any kind of 1:1 ratio? They've done zero market research on that number. And hopefully they'll be open to rethinking it as they continue to get bigger, increase their access to more popular titles and their available capital.

[captveg]

I think the bigger difference is, are Par titles included in the WB count?

Of course. But those still take resources and time for WB to author the discs. The WB catalog group took on the responsibility of 80+ titles, while Fox took on the responsibility of half of that. Fox was very heavy on 40s-60s releases this year, while Warner was heavier with 70s-80s, but this also disregards that in prior years Fox released very few 40s-60s titles while Warner did.

My point wasn't to criticize Fox - far from it - but to defend WB, which has released about the same # of titles per year for a few years now. I'm not gonna buy the Friday the 13th films, but. I completely understand there are a lot of horror fans who will, so releasing those films from the catalog holdings over, say, The Sea Hawk makes sense, though I certainly would love the latter.

[Moe Dickstein]

Most of those were reissues so no they didn't take the same resources to put together.

[captveg]

Most of those were reissues so no they didn't take the same resources to put together.

See, that's the kind of incorrect statement I'm trying to fight with the facts. Most of them were not re-issues (unless one considers titles going from DVD to Blu-ray as "reissues", which I don't, because if that was the case 99% of Fox's releases would be "reissues". Or if one considers repackaging of the same discs - such as the bringing back into print the OOP Paramount titles - which I don't).

By my count, 65 new-to-Blu titles and 9 reissues (3 of these had new video encode or new lossless audio, or both; 1 was a newly authored disc but the feature was the same; 1 is the 3D Wizard of Oz, and the other 4 are TBD if anything is upgraded with the feature disc as they have yet to be released).

9/74 = 12%, which is hardly "most"

Even if one stuck to just the 65 titles, that's still 5+ titles a month. (Of the 65, 24 are Paramount licensed titles and 2 are Samuel Goldwyn licensed titles). They also had another 3 new-to-Blu titles from Criterion and Warner Archive.

Fox has released/announced 38 new-to-Blu titles this year, and they've licensed out another 42 to Criterion, Twilight Time, Anchor Bay and Shout Factory.

80 (Fox) vs. 68 (WB) is not that far off, and they are both still well in advance of the other major studio catalog rights holders. And while it's easy to point to Jason X and mock Warner, Fox's contribution includes titles like Stuck on You and Wing Commander, so cherry picking which titles are "worthy" catalog releases is very open to subjective taste.

[Moe Dickstein]

Yeah I was counting back from OOP stuff as retreads. It's been released. What is the WB percentage of their own material from previous years to this year? Why license so much from Par when you let your own titles languish to do it. I would think if they wanted to add that material they should add staff and output to do it not replace their own product with it, that's more my concern.

[kingofthejungle]

So, the limited edition model is pitched as a way to keep things simple for the studios, and while I'm sure that it does make things incredibly easy for them -- is it really that necessary? In addition to Shout Factory, European Boutique labels like Carlotta, Koch Media, Sidonis, and Ascot Entertainment have licensed films from Fox and MGM, and released them in unlimited quantities at a lower price than TT does - and they also include extras. Perhaps the situation is different with Sony, but their deal with Mill Creek makes me suspect that a more reasonable scenario is possible there, too.

[captveg]

Yeah I was counting back from OOP stuff as retreads. It's been released.

Well, that stuff is simply putting in the order to recreate the run of material (discs/packaging). All the studios do it all the time with little fanfare. It only becomes noticeable when the distributor changes, like Warner picking up Paramount or Miramax titles going from Disney to Lionsgate or Echo Bridge. That seems like a biased standard to me, and has little to nothing to do with the studio's catalog home video release efforts, so why count it?

What is the WB percentage of their own material from previous years to this year?

Give me a little time on filmaf.com and I can put up the complete new-to-Blu WB US release history.

EDIT: Here ya go -

2006 - 18
2007 - 40
2008 - 48
2009 - 62
2010 - 65
2011 - 54
2012 - 73 (2 licensed from Samuel Goldwyn, 2 released through Warner Archive)
2013 - 68 (24 licensed from Paramount, 2 licensed from Samuel Goldwyn, 2 released through Warner Archive, 1 released through Criterion)

Why license so much from Par when you let your own titles languish to do it. I would think if they wanted to add that material they should add staff and output to do it not replace their own product with it, that's more my concern.

I think they figure the cost to license and sell Terms of Endearment and Shane is a nice supplement to their own remastering and marketing efforts on their own titles. Especially since as Joe Public is concerned Warner has exhausted their "evergreen" catalog titles on Blu-ray at this point (which is why they are re-issuing these evergreen titles like The Wizard of Oz and The Exorcist - they always sell, and they always will).