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Selfishly I didn't consider looking up those two as I already have the MOCs (I believe I'm only missing out on We Won't Grow Old Together). I think the greater misfortune here though is an other sign of how poorly MOC have stood up when they've shouted so furiously for excellence of the home video experience. The last year or two they've seemed sadly defeated even as they try to show new ambitions with excellent choices of films. Let's hope Rivette at least is doing them one better.

EddieLarkin wrote:OOP or no, I wouldn't be surprised if the discs are around for a long while yet. If they sold poorly before, I doubt they're going to fly off the shelves now, as demonstrated by the fact both Gandahar and Abhijan have been sat in the OOP section of the shop for several years. Similarly, the very small pressing they did of Michael over a year ago is still available, despite it being OOP for years before and going for big bucks on Amazon and ebay.

Every disc has a different story, so you can't apply one set of rules to them all.

ABHIJAN went OOP not because the licence expired, it was a 10 year licence. It went OOP due to poor sales and no desire to repress. After a few years of high prices on Amazon they repressed (or found a few boxes of it they didn't realise they had) and have been selling it only direct.

A repress will probably be at least 1,000 units, any smaller and it's not worth doing. So the "small pressing" they did of MICHAEL will probably last a few more years.

With regards to the Pialats, I'd wager these were only pressed once in their licence period, so it could be that stocks aren't as plentiful as you think. This is all just informed speculation based on facts from before June 2012.

This whole "poor sales" thing is an unexplored rats' nest of deeper issues, the biggest of which hasn't even been touched upon on this forum.

peerpee wrote:

EddieLarkin wrote:ABHIJAN went OOP not because the licence expired, it was a 10 year licence. It went OOP due to poor sales and no desire to repress. After a few years of high prices on Amazon they repressed (or found a few boxes of it they didn't realise they had) and have been selling it only direct.

Is there any reason why they're asking more for it than other OOP titles?

Possibly because Satyajit Ray has suddenly become fashionable again, what with the Criterion and Artificial Eye restorations.

I believe the Eureka Direct high pricing pre-dates the new Ray HD releases.

The high price of Abhijan is indeed nothing new. When it first was announced OOP, I quickly bought it, though not without some hesitation due to the price. This was three years ago.

Maybe there are far fewer copies left of Abhijan than there are for any of the other OOP titles, so they're not in as much of a rush to move the remaining stock.

If I were MoC, I'd also take a lesson from the Naruse story. After years and years of them not being able to give that box set away, once it goes out of print everybody but them starts to turn a profit on it. In their place, if I suddenly discovered a lost box of those sets, I'd certainly be charging a premium for them.

I do wonder how much of the success of the limited edition Blu Mizoguchi box has had to do with "limited edition Blu" vs. Mizoguchi. Perhaps the Naruse set and Pialat series would have performed much better if they had initially been presented this way?

I had a similar thought, but I think it's also important that they quantified how many would be for sale. Silent Running, Touch Of Evil and the other Universal Blus were listed as being "Limited Edition", but except for Touch of Evil, none of them showed up on that recent best-seller list.

peerpee wrote:This whole "poor sales" thing is an unexplored rats' nest of deeper issues, the biggest of which hasn't even been touched upon on this forum.

And which biggest issue is it that you are referring to? (I'm amazed no one has taken the bait and asked this...)

In my field (classical music) the biggest issues of an independent label would be of distribution and publicity, regardless of the elevated quality of the product itself.

I assume he means piracy.

swo17 wrote:I do wonder how much of the success of the limited edition Blu Mizoguchi box has had to do with "limited edition Blu" vs. Mizoguchi. Perhaps the Naruse set and Pialat series would have performed much better if they had initially been presented this way?

Do we have any precise figures on how many copies of the 2 already availables upgrades have been sold ? Because it might also be sold out because 2000 copies weren't simply enough (I doubt that MoC would be so far off, but one never knows).

swo17 wrote:I assume he means piracy.

I don't want to start a flame war on this topic with piracy and all, but I'd guess that if it touched Abhijan, it probably also touched other movies, amongst which there probably also have been some good sellers, no ?
I mean, the sales are probably at least partially representative of the general public interest for a movie, and I'd tend to believe that if the general interest in buying is low, the general interest of seeing the movie in the release country, even if it goes down to pirating the movie, isn't a lot bigger. You won't have like 200 sales and 10 000 illegal downloads. Like for video games and TV shows, huge illegal downloads usually go with huge watchers and buyers (eg Game of Thrones and Call of Duty).
Very naively, isn't it, being legal or illegal, just a question of how big is the existing viewership ?

Drucker wrote:I had a similar thought, but I think it's also important that they quantified how many would be for sale. Silent Running, Touch Of Evil and the other Universal Blus were listed as being "Limited Edition", but except for Touch of Evil, none of them showed up on that recent best-seller list.

Silent Running actually placed ahead of Touch of Evil on that list though I suspect that's probably due to the advertising it got on the radio. Another thing to consider with the Universal titles is that, although they are labeled as 'limited edition', there's nothing to say how limited they actually are such as the numbering that the Mizoguchi set carries.

swo17 wrote:I do wonder how much of the success of the limited edition Blu Mizoguchi box has had to do with "limited edition Blu" vs. Mizoguchi. Perhaps the Naruse set and Pialat series would have performed much better if they had initially been presented this way?

The limited edition is what persuaded me to purchase it now as opposed to when I have time to watch it. Working your way through the MOC, Criterion and Second Run etc., catalogues takes a very long time and I hate having a large unwatched pile. I was fortunate enough to get to the Naruse box before it was out of print but didnt want to risk it with a limited run.

swo17 wrote:I assume he means piracy.

Hasn't piracy been touched on to death in this forum? Or does he mean this particular title/topic?

My purchasing habits have been affected the most by Criterion's Hulu channel. Instead of blind buying a title like The Magician I just watched it on Hulu and saved by blind buys for titles like Ikarie XB 1 that aren't available elsewhere.

I'm assuming Pialat's Van Gogh is remaining in print for the time being.

Well yeah, it just came out. It was in announcing Van Gogh on their homepage that MoC mentioned that all of the other Pialat releases were going OOP.

These might be going OOP but stocks are still relatively high at the usual places. Passe Ton Bac D'abord can be picked up new from one of Amazon UK's 3rd party seller as cheap as £6. I wonder would Eureka consider doing another Pialat DVD bundle (I think they did one some years ago). I've always wanted to grab these films but as funds are always limited they inevitably got elbowed out of the way for something else...

This all seems rather odd to me, since I know Criterion wouldn't take a release out of print simply due to poor sales.

Wes Moynihan wrote:I wonder would Eureka consider doing another Pialat DVD bundle (I think they did one some years ago).

They did a deal wherein one could buy 3 Pialats and get one free (the freebie was randomly selected) not very long ago. They could try that again for sure.

rrenault wrote:This all seems rather odd to me, since I know Criterion wouldn't take a release out of print simply due to poor sales.

Poor sales for Criterion probably still number in the thousands; poor sales for MoC probably number in the low hundreds: the economics are completely different.

I, too, wonder if Nick meant something entirely apart from piracy with that cryptic remark, given that the MOC forum is home to the legendary "I got your film for nothing, cumstain" thread. Possibly something to do with MOC's relationship with Eureka, or Eureka's relationship with vendors...?

What's up with "Une Femme Mariee"? In or out of print?

manicsounds wrote:What's up with "Une Femme Mariee"? In or out of print?

Confirmed as OOP earlier by Eureka over at the Blu-ray.com forum.

A seller on Ebay who had copies for £10.84 with free UK shipping earlier today has put their price up to £999.99!