When are MGM going to start releasing catalogue titles again!

[Shane Rollins]

MGM/UA titles I’m waiting for

-Greed
-Freaks
-Gabriel Over The White House
-Gone With The Wind (4K)
-Raintree County
-Ben-Hur (4K)
-King Of Kings (4K)
-The Greatest Story Ever Told (4K)
-Doctor Zhivago (4K)
-Pink Floyd - The Wall
-The Secret Of NIMH
-Electric Dreams
-All Dogs Go To Heaven
-Rock-A-Doodle
-Hackers (4K)

All we need is MGM (or whatever’s left of them) to sort their shit out and we can get some great movies rolling out.

[Jar Jar Stinks]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

MGM/UA titles I’m waiting for

-Greed
-Freaks
-Gabriel Over The White House
-Gone With The Wind (4K)
-Raintree County
-Ben-Hur (4K)
-King Of Kings (4K)
-The Greatest Story Ever Told (4K)
-Doctor Zhivago (4K)
-Pink Floyd - The Wall
-The Secret Of NIMH
-Electric Dreams
-All Dogs Go To Heaven
-Rock-A-Doodle
-Hackers (4K)

All we need is MGM (or whatever’s left of them) to sort their shit out and we can get some great movies rolling out.

You might not get shit if Amazon pulls a Disney and shelves all their content for streaming on Prime.

[dylrichard02]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

MGM/UA titles I’m waiting for

-Greed
-Freaks
-Gabriel Over The White House
-Gone With The Wind (4K)
-Raintree County
-Ben-Hur (4K)
-King Of Kings (4K)
-The Greatest Story Ever Told (4K)
-Doctor Zhivago (4K)
-Pink Floyd - The Wall
-The Secret Of NIMH
-Electric Dreams
-All Dogs Go To Heaven
-Rock-A-Doodle
-Hackers (4K)

All we need is MGM (or whatever’s left of them) to sort their shit out and we can get some great movies rolling out.

A lot of these are with Warner Bros. So there is a higher possibility there.

[phobicsquirrel]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

You might not get shit if Amazon pulls a Disney and shelves all their content for streaming on Prime.

Unless the feds tell Amazon they can't buy the studio (probably isn't going to happen). At least the content will be on the high seas to jack sparrow if that's the case just like one can do for any streaming only crap. Sux though.

[Bk_Tan]

Is there an easily searchable database to check which studio owns which films' rights?

There's always discussions about who owns what, and obviously the aggregate terms get thrown around a lot ie 4000+ films, but which films are those?

As we know a lot of films change hands over the years and some companies go bankrupt etc.

[cloudnine]

Originally Posted by Bk_Tan

Is there an easily searchable database to check which studio owns which films' rights?

There's always discussions about who owns what, and obviously the aggregate terms get thrown around a lot ie 4000+ films, but which films are those?

As we know a lot of films change hands over the years and some companies go bankrupt etc.

Wikipedia

[RBBrittain]

Originally Posted by Bk_Tan

Is there an easily searchable database to check which studio owns which films' rights?

There's always discussions about who owns what, and obviously the aggregate terms get thrown around a lot ie 4000+ films, but which films are those?

As we know a lot of films change hands over the years and some companies go bankrupt etc.

Most of the major ones are well-known, especially the Turner library (now at WB, generally pre-1986 MGM, U.S. rights to most RKO films, and on paper still pre-1949 WB proper), MGM's ownership of most UA product after 1952 (including the Bond franchise but excluding a few TV properties Turner / WB kept like Gilligan's Island), and the EMKA library (now at Universal, Paramount sound films from the late 1920's -- *not* including Wings -- to 1948 or so).

[RBBrittain]

Originally Posted by cloudnine

Wikipedia

Maybe IMDb also, but that one's too international & doesn't clearly distinguish between film and home media rights. Sometimes they differ; I know several examples among Best Picture winners alone.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by tehthomas

The MGM vault being unleashed onto Prime would be epic. As much I don't want to see Amazon continue to get larger. Their movie selections have been pretty good lately, much better than Netflix, but not quite as good as HBOMAX.

The streaming home of A24 and MGM films would be nice. If only they can improve their terrible U/I

[Bk_Tan]

Originally Posted by RBBrittain

Most of the major ones are well-known, especially the Turner library (now at WB, generally pre-1986 MGM, U.S. rights to most RKO films, and on paper still pre-1949 WB proper), MGM's ownership of most UA product after 1952 (including the Bond franchise but excluding a few TV properties Turner / WB kept like Gilligan's Island), and the EMKA library (now at Universal, Paramount sound films from the late 1920's -- *not* including Wings -- to 1948 or so).

Thanks - there are many smaller studios now, and definitely there would've been over the years that might've released films that were hits/cult hits/awards-worthy etc. so just wondering if there were an easy way to know.

Another reason would be, given the streaming wars, which films you would expect to eventually permanently reside on which platforms - and thus, which films have no defined home and should most likely be bought.

For example A24 films seem to be distributed by Lionsgate on home video, but the rights are still retained by them. I'm sure there would've been loads of companies of small stature - just wondering what happens to the rights when some have gone out of business.

Also interested in the preservation/restoration aspect. MGM let the Alamo basically rot away despite once having a pristine copy of the negatives from a collector. So the public would have more awareness of which films have murky rights and are in danger of being lost or those which are owned by dodgy executives like MGM.

[Nailwraps]

I know they're recovering after the AT&T split, but Warner needs to place their bid to buy MGM ASAP!

All of MGM under roof again? Who wouldn't want that? Plus you also get a majority of the Castle Rock library in one place.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Bk_Tan

Is there an easily searchable database to check which studio owns which films' rights?

There's always discussions about who owns what, and obviously the aggregate terms get thrown around a lot ie 4000+ films, but which films are those?

As we know a lot of films change hands over the years and some companies go bankrupt etc.

Honestly, the database here is probably the most useful. Wikipedia usually just lists the original theatrical release studio, which is often irrelevant now. IMDB often lists every distributor in every country on every format from theatrical to TV to VHS to DVD to BD, etc. It's overwhelming.

Just see who released the most recent BD or DVD, here in the catalog. 90% of the time, it'll probably still be with that company (unless it's a boutique label that licensed it).

[Deathbymonkeys]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

You might not get shit if Amazon pulls a Disney and shelves all their content for streaming on Prime.

I think there is a VERY good chance of this being the outcome.

[RBBrittain]

Was originally gonna list the rights of all Best Picture winners here, but the project was too large & OT for this thread. Will create a new thread in a more appropriate place.

Edit: Here's the new thread I started with the first 50 Best Pictures (51 with Sunrise); will continue it later: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=18934316

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by RBBrittain

Was originally gonna list the rights of all Best Picture winners here, but the project was too large & OT for this thread. Will create a new thread in a more appropriate place.

Actually, I forgot, the BEST way to check is to look a movie up on Amazon and see if it's streaming. If it is, see who controls it in the fine print on the page. Home Video and streaming rights are the same like 90% of the time.

[RBBrittain]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Actually, I forgot, the BEST way to check is to look a movie up on Amazon and see if it's streaming. If it is, see who controls it in the fine print on the page. Home Video and streaming rights are the same like 90% of the time.

Vudu's fine print works much the same way.

[RBBrittain]

Originally Posted by Deathbymonkeys

I think there is a VERY good chance of this being the outcome.

Perhaps not completely. For one, Amazon has still released some of its in-house product on BD at least. For another, reportedly MGM has already committed its remaining 2021 releases to premiere in theaters -- most notably No Time to Die (likely Daniel Craig's last Bond film; at least Billie Eilish's theme is likely to be a Best Original Song contender in 2022, possibly others) and Respect (the Aretha Franklin biopic for which Jennifer Hudson is expected to be a Best Actress contender in 2022), plus possibly even more Oscar contenders -- and Amazon won't change those. (Edit: Amazon may also run into friction with Barbara Broccoli & Michael G. Wilson, the producers behind the Bond series which is now MGM's signature property, if they try to divert future Bond films to premiere on Prime; reportedly they repeatedly nixed efforts to move NTTD to streaming instead of delay it.)

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by Bk_Tan

Is there an easily searchable database to check which studio owns which films' rights?

There's always discussions about who owns what, and obviously the aggregate terms get thrown around a lot ie 4000+ films, but which films are those?

As we know a lot of films change hands over the years and some companies go bankrupt etc.

Originally Posted by cloudnine

Wikipedia

[BaronVH]

Originally Posted by Shane Rollins

MGM/UA titles I’m waiting for

-Greed
-Freaks
-Gabriel Over The White House
-Gone With The Wind (4K)
-Raintree County
-Ben-Hur (4K)
-King Of Kings (4K)
-The Greatest Story Ever Told (4K)
-Doctor Zhivago (4K)
-Pink Floyd - The Wall
-The Secret Of NIMH
-Electric Dreams
-All Dogs Go To Heaven
-Rock-A-Doodle
-Hackers (4K)

All we need is MGM (or whatever’s left of them) to sort their shit out and we can get some great movies rolling out.

Good luck on The Wall. Pretty good information in the thread about that film. From information there and other articles, it may be that Roger Waters is the issue, but I have no knowledge other than gleaning from what I have read. Like somebody else had said, several on that list are controlled by other studios. I bet you get a Zhivago, but they like to take their time with the David Lean films to get those right.

[CrazyBlu-RayFan]

Originally Posted by RBBrittain

Perhaps not completely. For one, Amazon has still released some of its in-house product on BD at least.

After Suspira (2018), disc releases of Amazon movies have slowed to a crawl, with most being foreign releases and region locked releases at that. And if there has been a recent Amazon movies put on disc in the USA, it has most likely been owned by a different studio, like The Goldfinch.