I have a question about Studio "Rights"

[Rathael]

Ok I am not sure if this was answered before or not... but I was wondering what happens to the movies that say they are made in collaboration with say Dreamworks/Warner Brothers or something... Once that comes to DVD does Warner Brothers have as much right toward it as Paramount or how does that work?

I THINK Beowulf is like that for an example.

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by Rathael

Ok I am not sure if this was answered before or not... but I was wondering what happens to the movies that say they are made in collaboration with say Dreamworks/Warner Brothers or something... Once that comes to DVD does Warner Brothers have as much right toward it as Paramount or how does that work?

I THINK Beowulf is like that for an example.

It depends. Sometimes the stuidos will say "I get to distribute the US market and you take everything else". Sometimes they even split it like "You get to distribute the theatrical side and we'll take the home video side".

Again it just depends on the contract.

[w_tanoto]

a few example: the hours: distributed by paramount in US, mixamax internationally.
titanic, produced and distributed internationally by FOX, distributed in US by paramount
Bruce Almighty produced and distributed in US by universal, buena vista internationally.

so, it depends on the agreement

[Rathael]

Ah alright thanks... it was just i was wondering because they are on opposite sides of the format war XD

[Anthony P]

there is no clear answer, the truth is reality is extremely complicated.

Usualy when several studios put in money in the title they decide before hand the division (so someone will have NA and someone else might have Europe).

but then you can have other agreements such as Studio X has it for a very small local market (like Transformers in Korea), a division could be made on format (i.e. you can release it on VHS, someone else DVD...) it can be a temporal agreement (Studio X can sell it for 10 years and later it returns to the original holder).... and then you have even more complex stuff, but then you get out of studios for example Spielberg has partial control on most of his movies which is why every time Universal says they will release ET, Jaws... on HD DVD they need to apologize and take it back, or it can even be as interesting as the studio only had partial rights to the music and they need to go back to the music’s proprietor to get permission to release the movie.