Studio issues



Future plans and acquisitions

 Along the line of the question above, perhaps one of the most commonly-asked questions we get is, "Are you going to do (film title of your choice) in a special edition?" or "When will (name your favorite Criterion LD title) come to DVD?"

We often don't give answers, but not because we think the suggestion is a bad one. Quite the contrary: Your suggestions are the lifeblood of our acquisitions process, so please keep them coming.

However, as most of you know, we are one of the few surviving small businesses in what has become an increasingly competitive global marketplace. So we hope you'll understand that we can't comment on what we are actually trying to acquire at any given time for either the laser or DVD format. We may agree that the titles on your list ought to be a part of the collection, and we may actually be chasing some of them. Unfortunately I can't say which, or when, without tipping our hand. We've been scooped one too many times, so you'll have to forgive us for keeping mum on the subject.

Nonetheless, we couldn't do what we do without you.
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Our faithful distributors

I read that Image has acquired the rights to transfer your (excellent) laserdisk collection to DVD. Does that include ALL your titles?
-- James Dwyer

Image Entertainment, one of our distributors, did not acquire the rights to the Collection for DVD release. Both Image Entertainment and Home Vision will be distributing the Criterion DVD titles. Home Vision has been our partner since the earliest days of Criterion, and we're very please that they'll be helping us sell our titles to reach even more stores and customers.


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Studios and us

Exactly who, and who not, does criterion have "agreements" with? I've seen Criterion sets from Columbia/Tri-Star, MGM, New Line, Miramax (and other Disney studios) and Universal. One would imagine that whoever Image distributes, Criterion can "do." Is this the case?
-- Damon Anyos

 Well, this certainly is a common question. Over the years, as you've noted, Criterion has had a series of license agreements with almost every major Hollywood studio. Some licenses are renewable, some aren't. We do our best to keep the whole catalog together and growing, but we do occasionaly lose rights, and in those cases we are forced to take certain titles out of print. These days we approach studio titles on a case-by-case basis, hoping to make the studios see the value of our work, and, as in the case of Boogie Nights, we are occasionally successful.

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Why so many out-of-print titles?

I frequently look on the web sight to see which titles are on sales. Recently I have been noticing a disturbing trend. Many of your classic titles have become out of print. I thouht that the whole purpose of your company was to preserve movies as they were intended to be seen. Movies like Akira, Lolita, Raging Bull, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Blade Runner, Citizen Kane, 2001, and The Wizard of Oz? ( the titles I've noticed so far) are all listed as "out-of-print collectible". I read Akira for sure is not coming back. How can this be. Its seems completely wrong. The Criterion collection is responsible for my exposure to the best movies ever done and I find the idea of not being able to own Criterion edition of these movies tragic. Please let me know what is going on and if this movies will ever become available again on the Criterion collection.

-- Victor Aguiluz

Not all licensing agreements last forever, and when a contract runs out, a new one doesn't automatically get made. As has been mentioned previously in this column, when we first began the Criterion Collection, many major studios didn't have laserdisc departments, and they happily agreed to let us make special editions of some of their films. Well, now those studios do have their own departments, and they're making their own special editions of lasers and DVDs (and, I add somewhat self-aggrandizingly, they're based on Criterion models). We do all in our power to keep the Collection intact, but it isn't always humanly possible.

However, some good news: As many of you can't have helped notice, this site has gone through a major overhaul since the beginning of the year, and a few kinks still need to be worked out. One of them is that some titles currently designated "out of print collectible" are really on "moratorium." This means that they have a very good chance of coming back at a later date and a lower price (see the first six titles to come off moratorium on What's New).

Back to the out-of-print titles: Please don't despair. We recommend visiting dejanews.com and searching on "Criterion: FS." New postings are added every day, and this also happens to be a great source of laser gossip. Laser publications (among them The Laser Disc Newsletter and Home Theater) always have listings in the back featuring hard-to-find titles. And don't forget your local retailer: Tower Video, Blockbuster, and Virgin Megastores (to name national outlets) may have that lone copy of the disc you need languishing behind the stack of Home Alone 3s. Good luck!!

Ghostbusters and Blade Runner

Are there any plans to release special editions of Ghostbusters or Blade Runner on DVD?

 At this time, no arrangements have been made to release either of these Criterion special edition laserdiscs in the DVD format.
Longtime customers will recall that early in the life of Criterion, we focused much less on major studio titles; the same is likely to be true on DVD. At this time, many more studio films are receiving better care than they were 10 years ago when we started making lasers. Gradually, many studios began to develop their own "added value" editions of their biggest- selling titles. It remains to be seen whether the DVD marketplace will be able to support the studios' emulation of Criterion editions; it certainly seems that most of them are committed to giving it a try. Needless to say, we'd be thrilled and honored to work on either of these titles and the many other films you've requested. At this point, the ball's in the studios' courts.
Criterion customers can help: if you like what we do, we encourage you to let the various studios' home video marketing departments know that you'd like to see special editions of their titles released on DVD by Criterion.


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