Criterion and Fox / MGM / Universal

[knives]

Peyton Place is better than half the collection and a big enough film that the dismissal seems odd.

[Apperson]

I've been wanting some kind of Region-B release for years based on domino's write-up, but there was a pretty recent Twilight Time version (as is two years after 1984 recent).

[Arthur House]

Those most recent Fox titles were presumably in the pipeline pre-Disney. Disney has recently more or less shuttered the Fox theatrical rep department, which doesn't entirely bode well for them licensing stuff.

Keeping in the spirit of the thread, some other titles to consider if Disney plays ball:

An Unmarried Woman
Harry & Tonto
Willie & Phil
A Wedding
Titles from the Murnau/Borzage box.

[domino harvey]

I don’t think A Wedding is with Fox anymore. Fallen Angel is forthcoming from TT, but they seem about one step away from shuttering so maybe not

[Arthur House]

I don’t think A Wedding is with Fox anymore. Fallen Angel is forthcoming from TT, but they seem about one step away from shuttering so maybe not

Who would have A Wedding then? Anchor Bay did an ultra-cheap DVD (no features or menus!) not long after the Fox Altman Box and individual release discs went OOP.

[domino harvey]

Discussion of the Disney/Fox merger moved here

[flyonthewall2983]

Bill Hunt reported on thedigitablbits some rumblings about Warner Brothers buying the rights to the MGM titles that were owned by Fox as of June 30th, when that deal expired.

[Ribs]

It’s not really an ownership situation, is it? It’s distribution rights - MGM is still in charge for those titles, WB just does the actual printing and distribution for the titles, it’s just an output deal. So there shouldn’t be any real reason why MGM titles wouldn’t start reappearing from all the specialty labels once the deal’s in motion. Did I misunderstand the situation?

[domino harvey]

So like what WB did for the Paramount titles they acquired, a WB UPC slapped on existing stock and a rebrand for future pressings?

[knives]

And one step closer to them owning the state of Delaware.

[flyonthewall2983]

It’s not really an ownership situation, is it? It’s distribution rights - MGM is still in charge for those titles, WB just does the actual printing and distribution for the titles, it’s just an output deal. So there shouldn’t be any real reason why MGM titles wouldn’t start reappearing from all the specialty labels once the deal’s in motion. Did I misunderstand the situation?

Hunt was pretty vague about it and didn't describe it any clearer than I just did, not citing any official sources but citing it as going through the "grapevine".

Maybe one or both sides wants to consolidate the whole library which isn't a bad idea at all, and it seems to retroactively fit into what I'm reading about what the studio is doing now under it's new ownership by taking on new properties (they were a surprise contender in getting the rights to the new Scorsese movie) and not being so tied to past franchises.

[Ribs]

The grapevine, as is usual for Bill Hunt, was just based on product listings, releases that are ostensibly MGM (a season of Vikings, in particular? having listings appearing with Warner as the distributor. He doesn’t actually have any kind of inside grapevine tidbits, seeing as this was shared on Blu-ray’s forums before he shared it. Besides the fact this handover took MGM off the table for a chunk of the last year, I expect there’ll be pretty much no change in how things actually play out w/r/t every specialty label’s ability to license from them as it used to be.

[Ribs]

With THE GUNFIGHTER and CLAUDINE coming it appears there'll still be Fox titles held over from whenever they made their last deal coming in for the forseeable future.

[therewillbeblus]

Makes sense given their recent output including a Fox title practically each month, hopefully it's good for a while

[Ribs]

Criterion just sitting on the rights for movies for years (still waiting on ANY new SC titles!) will end up paying dividends as they’ll end up the last to still be putting out from the Fox library.

[FrauBlucher]

It’ll be interesting to see how many more Fox titles will be coming to CC. If Fox execs gave a heads up to CC about Disney deal hopefully more, bigger deals between Fox and CC were struck. I wonder how many Fox titles like The Gunfighter that don’t have a bluray release

[domino harvey]

The problem is, a lot of primo choice MIA Fox titles are not exactly Criterion material. As weird as it sounds, I’d be happier if they’d have struck such a deal with KLSC

[Ribs]

I know we all want to hope for some of the titles that haven't gotten BD releases, but are there any other early-days-of-TT Fox titles that seem like the sort of thing CC would go after a la Leave Her To Heaven? I'm not familiar enough with spotting library titles from specific studios off-hand, but is there a world where they'd want to release Breaking Away or The Driver or movies like those? (I know that the only way we'll know is when they come, just spitballing ideas)

[therewillbeblus]

I could see Criterion going after more Mazursky, in which case they could pick up Next Stop, Greenwich Village, though I really hope they have Harry and Tonto in the works, which definitely is right up their alley

[flyonthewall2983]

FWIW, Warner Bros. is putting out Bill And Ted Face the Music on Blu.

[Luke M]

Do we think Criterion might release The Best Years of Our Lives? I've been considering overpaying for the OOP blu-ray but I can definitely hold off there's some speculation.

[senseabove]

That's a WB release, so seems more likely it'll get a Warner Archive rerelease at some point.

[knives]

Even more complicated is that it’s a Sam Goldwyn film.

[domino harvey]

They already rereleased the similarly Samuel Goldwyn Blu of Hans Christian Anderson via the Archives, so it doesn’t appear to complicate anything as far as we know

[Luke M]

Thanks for the responses. I can wait.