Lack of announcements for Catalog Releases for 2020

[tehthomas]

It is just me or is there really nothing to look forward to yet. Am I missing something? 2019 was amazing, Kino, Arrow and Criterion were on fire.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by tehthomas

It is just me or is there really nothing to look forward to yet. Am I missing something? 2019 was amazing, Kino, Arrow and Criterion were on fire.

February has been a MASSIVE month for catalogue titles. March is a little lighter, but April has a lot as well. We don't even know have the titles for May yet. I think it's been pretty good so far.

[Nailwraps]

Yeah, there's 4K Ultra HD catalog Disney titles for Beauty and The Beast (1991 AND 2017), Monsters Inc., Monsters University, WALL-E, just to name a few, and on Blu-ray; My Bloody Valentine (1981) Collector's Edition, Tex Avery MGM cartoons, The Freakmaker, Beyond the Door from Arrow Video, Laurel and Hardy Definitive Restorations, and the Gamera box set.

Besides, the year just started, there's bound to be a lot of catalog titles planned this year.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by tehthomas

It is just me or is there really nothing to look forward to yet. Am I missing something? 2019 was amazing, Kino, Arrow and Criterion were on fire.

It is just you.

Since January 2, 2020 I have counted approximately 167 catalog titles announced in the "Top News" section on this website; you can read about each of them across pages 1-7 of the blu-ray news section. These are all for upcoming releases that were just announced this year. Many more upcoming releases were announced last year on pages 7 and up.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/

How many of these titles are of interest to you personally is another matter, but we are getting lots of announcements and more will come; just watch the news section on the left margin of this website's home page.

[tehthomas]

Originally Posted by Vilya

It is just you.

Since January 2, 2020 I have counted approximately 167 catalog titles announced in the "Top News" section on this website; you can read about each of them across pages 1-7 of the blu-ray news section. These are all for upcoming releases that were just announced this year. Many more upcoming releases were announced last year on pages 7 and up.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/

How many of these titles are of interest to you personally is another matter, but we are getting lots of announcements and more will come; just watch the news section on the left margin of this website's home page.

Touche. Thanks for the replies everyone.

[monwobbbo]

also keep in mind that the law of diminishing returns applies as well. for me their aren't a ton of titles that i really have to have that haven't been released so i expect a slower year. still more titles to go and i expect that some of them will be announced for this year (Curse Of Frankenstein this means you). i also expect that some titles will get announced that i hadn't even thought about as well.

[CinemaScope]

Yup, a storm of catalogue releases both sides of the pond, but...nothing that I can get excited about yet, & there's a ton of catalogue releases I'd love. Oh well, one of these months there's going to be a lot of titles announced that I really want, meanwhile I'm saving my cash.

[Jobla]

Just check out Kino's list of upcoming titles for 2020, over in the Kino Lorber thread. Tons of stuff coming this year, and Kino is just one label!

[IndyMLVC]

I currently have a list of about 25 titles to purchase and they're all catalog titles.

Granted, 90% of them are 4k but...

[Vriess]

How many more catalog titles are you actually interested in? I must have 99 percent of my wishlist by now.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by Vriess

How many more catalog titles are you actually interested in? I must have 99 percent of my wishlist by now.

Blu-ray is still pretty weak when you go back to 1930's and 1940's especially. It's getting better, but I can think of literally dozens of movies I'd like to see finally get their proper due. It's a frustrating slow drip waiting for Warner Archive to get these out or for Criterion to occasionally add one of these to their schedule.

Plenty of classic foreign cinema is still missing as well. The coverage of the format is still really low even among what most would consider "major" movies of the time. Obviously if we go more recent, like the 80's, 90's, 00's the vast majority of the mainstream films are out, so most "wishlists" should be largely fulfilled there. Actually we are well into "double dip" territory, where i'd like to see some 4K/UHD upgrades of major films that only got half-assed blu-rays. There's plenty of opportunities to finally get those right.

[monwobbbo]

Originally Posted by AgentOrange

Blu-ray is still pretty weak when you go back to 1930's and 1940's especially. It's getting better, but I can think of literally dozens of movies I'd like to see finally get their proper due. It's a frustrating slow drip waiting for Warner Archive to get these out or for Criterion to occasionally add one of these to their schedule.

Plenty of classic foreign cinema is still missing as well. The coverage of the format is still really low even among what most would consider "major" movies of the time. Obviously if we go more recent, like the 80's, 90's, 00's the vast majority of the mainstream films are out, so most "wishlists" should be largely fulfilled there. Actually we are well into "double dip" territory, where i'd like to see some 4K/UHD upgrades of major films that only got half-assed blu-rays. There's plenty of opportunities to finally get those right.

think that this is another way that streaming is making things tough for physical media. i would imagine that tiles are picked based on the idea that there will be demand for them on streaming services. once you get past the big name titles i'm thinking that pre 80s you end up with diminishing returns for titles that are in demand. i confess that even in my own collection i have very few titles from the 30s and 40s (horror only). the target audience fro many of those films is aging out. when you get down to it even for films in the 60s and 70s the audience that grew up with them is starting to age as well (me included).

[Strapped4Cash]

I'm in a similar position. There's almost nothing for me, except for 1-2 titles like Hot Dog. There's still a lot of 80's-00's catalog I want to see, titles never released to physical, or stuck on VHS or LD. A lot more if one includes titles that have gotten DVD releases.

But there is a lot of catalog, for other people, being released.

Originally Posted by Jobla

Just check out Kino's list of upcoming titles for 2020, over in the Kino Lorber thread. Tons of stuff coming this year, and Kino is just one label!

Personally, I read that thread every day, and they have yet to announce anything for 2020 that I'd buy even at one of their great sales for $5.99. But you're right that they are releasing quite a lot of catalog titles.

I think that a lot really depends on someone's preferences and interests.

[Member-222782]

It's definitely a personal preference thing. My current shopping list is the shortest it's ever been but it's only because there's nothing being announced that I like. There's plenty of back catalog stuff still being churned out by the boutique labels, though. The labels I'm most looking forward to are (in no particular order) Scorpion, Kino and Vinegar Syndrome. All 3 have release plans that either have not been finalized or contain titles that haven't been officially revealed. Scream and Severin have fallen out of favor with me because of their current focus on Hammer and Jess Franco, respectively, which I have zero interest in.

[professorwho]

For 4K? So far I agree. But in terms of standard BD, Criterion is killing it. Not everything they announce is for me, but you can always count on them to release films that are beloved to many on a consistent basis.

[zw94]

At this point most of my Blu-ray wishlist has been released and the stuff left on it is high unlikely to ever get a release, especially since the titles I want barely had a run on DVD and are long out of print. If it's not available on DVD, I can't imagine we'll ever see a Blu-ray. Though I said that about Matewan and Criterion put that out, amazingly.

There are some exceptions to this of course (mf Panic Room over here), but my attention has turned to hoping for some of my mainstream favourites on 4K. But as far as upgrading my entire collection from Blu to 4K? It will never happen.

[meremortal]

Blu's going into its 14th year and so there have been both a ton of releases and changes in consumer home media preferences since then. Paramount mostly fell asleep a few years ago and still have a lot of unreleased titles. It's nice that Universal recently subbed out some of their catalog to Kino as someone else mentioned. And others are getting lazy and adopting a 'made on demand' model as an excuse to charge more money since other major studios have done the same. The real gems have probably been the boutique labels who are consistently releasing both cult favorites and lesser known titles.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by monwobbbo

think that this is another way that streaming is making things tough for physical media. i would imagine that tiles are picked based on the idea that there will be demand for them on streaming services. once you get past the big name titles i'm thinking that pre 80s you end up with diminishing returns for titles that are in demand. i confess that even in my own collection i have very few titles from the 30s and 40s (horror only). the target audience fro many of those films is aging out. when you get down to it even for films in the 60s and 70s the audience that grew up with them is starting to age as well (me included).

I would think most people who actually went to the cinemas to watch films in the 30's are long dead (since the people in the audience would be 90-120+ years old now), but I still want to see them on blu. Of course I even enjoy delving into silent films on blu (many of which I find genuinely entertaining, I only recall a few I would dismiss as "boring" or maybe something only a film academic would be interested in). I just want to see the great films out there regardless of decade or era. All of these are before my time, and sadly I wouldn't be surprised if the issue were some persistent hesitancy to do 1.33 films or B&W films.

I guess there's some validity to this market theory, that the "baby boomers" need to be catered to, so that is why you saw 50's and 60's era films in pretty good numbers still on blu-ray, whereas the catalog output for pre-baby boomer era pretty much falls of a cliff. I'm sure there are some practical realities, with films likely needing more restoration work the farther you go back. In addition to them perhaps wanting to still focus on "color" and "widescreen" films for restorations. Obviously there are some ties to economic reality, but we also see tons of random releases that seem to defy any such logic (esp with major classics getting neglected half-assed releases by major studios, then some random cult z movie getting a 4K remaster).

I'm not talking about delving into b-films or poverty row. I just mean we are still missing a bunch of the biggest films with the biggest stars. You'd think just from a film preservation standpoint they'd be on top of some of those and have already restored them. If i developed a "want list" of 100 films not on blu (which might even be hard for me to do at this stage), I'm sure at least half of them would be 1930's or 1940's, with another chunk being foreign films (i.e. mostly films i want Criterion to upgrade). Then we have "The Abyss" and "True Lies" still floating out there. These aren't among my favorites or anything, but it's kind of crazy high profile films like that are still missing and I'd probably have them on my list of 100.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by meremortal

Blu's going into its 14th year and so there have been both a ton of releases and changes in consumer home media preferences since then. Paramount mostly fell asleep a few years ago and still have a lot of unreleased titles. It's nice that Universal recently subbed out some of their catalog to Kino as someone else mentioned. And others are getting lazy and adopting a 'made on demand' model as an excuse to charge more money since other major studios have done the same. The real gems have probably been the boutique labels who are consistently releasing both cult favorites and lesser known titles.

Yes, Twilight Time was a godsend to the format (getting a good number of Sony and Fox titles in particular with very good restorations), along with Warner Archive doing their 5 or so titles a month. Kino has been similar. Kino is higher volume, but obviously spottier with the quality. Twilight Time seems to be on wind-down path, so we will need someone to pickup more of the Sony/Columbia catalog. Hopefully someone can get their hands on Fox, it would be a shame if Disney just buried it.

I've watched a couple of Scream/Shout Factory films recently that they apparently licensed from Paramount (or at least that had a Paramount logo); Silver Bullet and My Bloody Valentine. Both had nice technical quality (or at least I was pleased with both). So hopefully the spigots are now opened with Paramount as well.