Comments on: Open Forum Friday: Are Limited Edition Collectibles Unfair to Fans?

By: Wintle

Wintle — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:10:09 +0000

The only thing I take issue with is that they should really limit it to one purchase per household. Otherwise, I’m all for limited edition products.

By: PhilH

PhilH — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:28:25 +0000

pure shit, stinks

By: swarez

swarez — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:33:27 +0000

It is weird that a company would limit themselves to a profit but it has allot to do with the rights holders. They only allow the item to have certain amounts of copies and only one release.
The collectors love this and flippers more so but as a friend of mine proved with his Change In To A Truck print, people are willing to buy a great product if its available. Flippers and collectors gave him shit for doing more editions of the print, saying that the first edition would fall in price and nobody would buy the newer ones but my friend just sold out his seventh edition of this piece and the first edition still sells for silly money on Ebay.
I guarantee that Fright Night and Christine and most of the best selling Twilight Time films will get regular releases from the studio down the line, if not in the states then over seas.

By: Jack

Jack — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:16:49 +0000

Another problem with this is international buyers. I’m in the UK and TwilightTime automatically adds $10 p&p to my order, their prices are already ridiculous but that takes the cake. I don’t think there are places in the UK that offer anything like TwilightTime and I’m sort of glad, just release the BD normally.

By: Owozifa

Owozifa — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:27:32 +0000

Studio Canal seems to pull the licenses pretty fast, as a lot of the Criterion releases only lasted a couple years.

By: Juan Costrada

Juan Costrada — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:19:29 +0000

An interesting concept that is likely behind the business model, is that they are inducing a higher demand for their products. The limited availability is their point of difference and they can demand the fee for 3000 at the beginning, rather than watch sales meander (dependent on the film of course). This lowers the risk for their investment and provides some cost savings.

The flipside is that without this scheme some (not all) films may not be given the Bluray treatment at all.

I would have thought that downloading would play against this, but it appears people still love physical copies.

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:43:25 +0000

Yeah, the others that have been OOP for a while as far as BD are Chungking Express, Pierrot le fou, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Playtime and The Third Man.

I unfortunately only own the DVDs of those and missed the boat on the Blu-rays.

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:32:45 +0000

You should follow Criterion on Twitter, Scotty. That’s usually how they let people know about upcoming OOP’s. I bought Army of Shadows and Le Cercle Rouge a few months before they went out of print during a flash sale. Chungking Express is also out of print I believe.

By: Curtis Talls

Curtis Talls — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:40:05 +0000

The lamest thing about Twilight Time/SAE is they encourage these ebay scalpers by allowing them to pick up 10 copies at once. If SAE would just limit purchases to 2 copies more fans could actually pick up these titles when the pre orders go up. I was really bummed out that Christine sold out day one. I mean I didn’t even get to check the pre order email they sent out until the following day and then…. nope… all gone.

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:00:57 +0000

You can still find Leon Morin on Blu on Amazon, the other three might be a little tougher.

Also worth noting that Melville’s Le Doulos and also Mafiosa went OOP as well on DVD, no BD release for those. Luckily I had those too.

By: Owozifa

Owozifa — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:40:08 +0000

Well fuck I never heard about that.

I have Army of Shadows, but that’s it. Boned now.

For the most part with Criterion going out of print it’s the license though, and lately it’s always been Studio Canal pulling the plug.

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:16:51 +0000

Yeah, I like the Criterion will give a fair warning when something is about to go out of print. And for them, it’s simply about losing the rights rather than trying to make stuff artificially hard to get.

Recently, they announced Last Year at Marienbad, Army Of Shadows, Le Cercle Rouge, and Leon Morin Priest going out of print. I already owned the DVDs, but decided to quickly order the Blu-Rays now to have them as they were movies I planned to upgrade eventually. Thankfully they were courteous enough to let everyone know and allow time for people to pick them up.

Good way to do it.