BDs That Are Out of Print (OOP)

[DMRI2006]

Originally Posted by deltatauhobbit

I'd like to be surprised that they'd be willing to license out to boutique labels, since they will not put out the discs themselves, but I just don't see that happening. Amazon clearly bought it to bulk up their streaming service. The logistics likely aren't worth it to Amazon to pursue disc releases, whereas for MGM it was since they've essentially been a dead studio for years without much else to do or their own streaming service.

But Amazon isn't Disney, which is as unfriendly to physical media and catalog releases as anyone, and was an obvious marriage made in hell for anyone wanting to see the Fox catalog taken care of and remain "visible" via remasters/boutique releases. That obviously was never in the cards once Disney bought Fox. Disney's whole plan wasn't keeping Fox going, it was taking its assets, gutting it and shutting it down, which is just what they've done.

Is Amazon going to do the same to MGM? I don't know but it seems to be a little bit of leap to think so. Certainly MGM signing a new deal with Warner for physical media distribution doesn't sound like this is a Disney/Fox thing. Plus even if it's small money, Amazon is still making money off selling physical media. With no more retail venues for people to buy discs, Amazon is the go-to site for any of those sales now, and they are probably not insignificant.

And then there's the issue of so many MGM catalog titles being obscure, to the point the venue they will make money is finding their niche via boutique media. While the MGM library is huge, it isn't the Disney library. Nobody is going to run to sign up for Amazon Prime for some B-grade '60s drive-in movie, and yet the MGM catalog itself is filled with the libraries of very small, long forgotten companies and their films. There are only so many ROCKY and BOND films to go around that would drive people to Prime. So wouldn't it be better to make some money off the "small stuff" (even if it's small in the grand scheme of things) licensing out to indie labels than basically no money (as Disney is going to do with the bulk of Fox's catalog, which they are going to let rot on the shelves for the next generation).

So we'll see. It's going to depend on whether Amazon will let MGM exist as it has in terms of exploiting its library to small labels, whether it's Blu-Rays or CDs, or whatever. That's always been the part of MGM that's made money reliably. The movie business element is something else obviously, and MGM has long struggled there, but just seems to me shutting down the one thing MGM has profited off isn't necessarily a no-brainer.

[Rayjg]

Originally Posted by DaniRyder23

Well, this is a depressing thread to read through...

I think the most annoying thing about it though, is that whereas it kinda used to be that something going OOP would just mean that you didn't have the option to buy it new/sealed for RRP anymore, now whenever something goes OOP you start to see all the used copies go up in price as well...even if it's something that was in circulation for the better part of a decade?

I don't mind foregoing a brand new, sealed copy of an OOP disc, I mean fair enough...but the market value of used discs going up just because they *can* always feels a little...frustrating to me.

Is that disc really worth more than it was a few years earlier, just because they stopped making new ones? Even if there are tens of thousands of them in circulation?

Try not to dwell on what we've lost and focus on all we've gained

[scififan73]

I too am unconvinced that amazon is going to do much with mgm's back catalog. They announced a year or two ago that they were ending their disc mod program for some stuff that was ONLY available on their website as a physical disc purchase, such as the last 3 seasons of little house on the prarie. Now those discs are unbelievably some of the most expensive in my collection -- little house, who the hell would have thought that?
When scifi dropped the expanse, much press was made of how Bozo, oops, Bezos, was a fan of the show and amazon would swoop in and rescue the series. The 4th season was released as an amazon only disc, but seasons 5 and 6? Only available as streaming through amazon prime. So i guess by the letter of the law he did save the series, but only as fodder for a streaming platform and physical release buyers can presumably go suck an egg.
I have a little hope (?) that the Bond series will eventually receive a 4k release, but that's only due to the Broccolli family having a 50% stake in the franchise, not to Bozo's altruism.

[noiradelic]

Originally Posted by Filmfan73

Crap, I don't know when it happened but looks like Star Trek The Next Generation complete series BD is out of print.

Originally Posted by DeusExMacarena

I wonder if they did this to force users to subscribe to Paramount+.

Originally Posted by James Luckard

That seems plausible to me.

Hope this isn't old news, but Star Trek:TNG Complete Series is being rereleased next month:

Star Trek:TNG The Complete Series BD

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by noiradelic

Hope this isn't old news, but Star Trek:TNG Complete Series is being rereleased next month:

Star Trek:TNG The Complete Series BD

Makes sense that a flagship home video title like that, which they spent a FORTUNE to remaster, would get a slimmed-down repackaging.

[cakefactory]

Jesus. I just spent a ton of money buying up most of the Fox titles I had any interest in (besides the handful of super expensive ones like Working Girl), and now I find out I have to do the same with MGM? I really hate this digital takeover.

Looks like some of the key ones I need to get are:

Manhattan/Annie Hall/Sleeper/Hannah and her Sisters
Thelma and Louise
Back to School (seems like it might be too late with this one already)
Duck You Sucker (surely a good release of this will come out somewhere in the world? Right??)
Midnight Cowboy
Mystic Pizza

I'm glad I have bought so many things i saw in discount bins over the years, but man, this is still exhausting. I wish those jackasses at Disney and Amazon were assured to license things out to boutique labels, but it looks like that might never happen.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Jesus. I just spent a ton of money buying up most of the Fox titles I had any interest in (besides the handful of super expensive ones like Working Girl), and now I find out I have to do the same with MGM? I really hate this digital takeover.

Looks like some of the key ones I need to get are:

Manhattan/Annie Hall/Sleeper/Hannah and her Sisters
Thelma and Louise
Back to School (seems like it might be too late with this one already)
Duck You Sucker (surely a good release of this will come out somewhere in the world? Right??)
Midnight Cowboy
Mystic Pizza

I'm glad I have bought so many things i saw in discount bins over the years, but man, this is still exhausting. I wish those jackasses at Disney and Amazon were assured to license things out to boutique labels, but it looks like that might never happen.

There's just no way to know for sure.

I've never claimed I have concrete knowledge that any or all of these titles will vanish forever. I'm just willing to spend $8 for a disc that ends up being worth $100 two years down the road, like The Ghost and Mrs Muir, on the chance that it will never reappear. If it does, that's the risk to me, but I'm willing to accept it.

[houseca]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Duck You Sucker (surely a good release of this will come out somewhere in the world? Right??)

This isn't a good release?

[noiradelic]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Jesus. I just spent a ton of money buying up most of the Fox titles I had any interest in, and now I find out I have to do the same with MGM?

Looks like some of the key ones I need to get are:

Manhattan/Annie Hall/Sleeper/Hannah and her Sisters
Duck You Sucker (surely a good release of this will come out somewhere in the world? Right??)
Midnight Cowboy

I wish those jackasses at Disney and Amazon were assured to license things out to boutique labels, but it looks like that might never happen.

As houseca pointed out, Duck You Sucker's in print under the name A Fistful of Dynamite. The UK Eureka edition's also very much in print.

If/when the Allen titles go OOP, they may get picked up by Sandpiper/Olive.

As you probably know, Midnight Cowboy was put out by Criterion and cheap MGM editions are also still available. The Criterion will be available at least as long as the current run takes to sell out, and maybe a lot longer.

Though AZ's track record of releasing movies they've produced on BD isn't good, they may be a lot more amenable to licensing (and renewing licenses) to boutique labels than Disney, especially considering how big and sprawling the MGM catalog is. One positive note is the Kino Studio Classics line was built on MGM titles -- there may have been more MGM titles released on BD than any other major studio's back catalog (at least up till the 1990s).

[Vw Driver]

Thale seems to be readily available on amazon and ebay, don't think it should be on the list really.

[JohnCarpenterLives]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I'm just trying to be realistic, and guide people towards buying those OOP discs that are still on the market and readily available, instead of waiting for re-issues that I don't think will ever come.

I think MGM films will suffer the exact same fate as Fox films, and I think people should be aware of this and shop with that in mind right now.

I don't see Amazon hiring multiple people and starting up an entire home video division to deal with MGM's catalog of old titles that will only appeal to a few hundred collectors on disc. Especially since Amazon never started a proper home video department to handle their own brand new films.

I also don't see them releasing their entire catalog again through their Warners deal. We're lucky enough that they're licensing a handful to KL for UHD discs, since MGM barely supports them for occasional new releases and doesn't do catalog UHDs.

And I don't see Amazon taking the time to license the MGM titles to a boutique label en masse either. The days of them doing that with KL seem over. A big company like Amazon usually considers the time it takes their business affairs department to work all that out to be a waste, for the minimal revenue that'll result. Every hour they spend negotiating a contract for an MGM film from 1960 to get a release on 1000 BDs is an hour those lawyers aren't working on something else that can bring in 100x the revenue.

I don't like any of this, I'm not endorsing it, I'm just being realistic.

MGM absolutely flooded the market with most of their catalog titles. The Fox BDs of them, though OOP, are almost all available at ridiculously low prices used, or even still wrapped and good as new.

Also, remember that in the BD era, MGM still only released a fraction of their catalog on BD. I'd say 3/4 of the MGM titles that came out on DVD at the height of the home media craze in the early 2000s ended up on BD a decade later only because KL stepped in and brought them to us. The market was already contracting that much a decade ago.

If anyone wants any MGM titles released on BD through Fox, I recommend they buy them now. Just my two cents.

I've operated this way for the last few years, and have snapped up a number of titles from various studios that are now long gone, likely never to re-appear on disc. I'm much happier that way.

Is there a list of MGM blus anywhere?

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by JohnCarpenterLives

Is there a list of MGM blus anywhere?

I'm not sure, they've licensed such a MASSIVE portion of their catalog.

You could look on Wikipedia for all films distributed theatrically by MGM, but some of those are no longer with MGM, and lots of titles found homes at MGM long after their theatrical life (Four Weddings and a Funeral, for example).

You could also go to the search engine here and search by studio. That's what I did to find Fox titles. The issue there is, again, how many MGM titles didn't come out on BD directly through MGM.

Sorry, wish there were an easier way.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by houseca

This isn't a good release?

Huh. Don't know how I missed that one. Thought the MGM one was the only one available and had never heard anyone discuss a different release. Thanks!

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Jesus. I just spent a ton of money buying up most of the Fox titles I had any interest in (besides the handful of super expensive ones like Working Girl), and now I find out I have to do the same with MGM? I really hate this digital takeover.

Looks like some of the key ones I need to get are:

Manhattan/Annie Hall/Sleeper/Hannah and her Sisters
Thelma and Louise
Back to School (seems like it might be too late with this one already)
Duck You Sucker (surely a good release of this will come out somewhere in the world? Right??)
Midnight Cowboy
Mystic Pizza

I'm glad I have bought so many things i saw in discount bins over the years, but man, this is still exhausting. I wish those jackasses at Disney and Amazon were assured to license things out to boutique labels, but it looks like that might never happen.

Between making this post and yesterday, almost all of these titles disappeared off Amazon and are now secondary market only. So, yeah, seems like this MGM OOP thing is happening. I'd recommend anyone interested in anything released directly by MGM snap them up before they go up in price. Most of the new/used prices were still like 5-10 dollars. Only Sleeper and Back to School were substantially more.

[noiradelic]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

You could look on Wikipedia for all films distributed theatrically by MGM, but some of those are no longer with MGM, and lots of titles found homes at MGM long after their theatrical life (Four Weddings and a Funeral, for example).

The great majority of the pre-1982 MGM catalog is the United Artists catalog, so their Wikipedia page's the one you'd want to look at for the older films.

[bipbop13]

Wouldn't you just do a search here under M.G.M. for blu-rays?

[houseca]

Originally Posted by bipbop13

Wouldn't you just do a search here under M.G.M. for blu-rays?

That would not include the many MGM titles licensed to boutiques and other labels, which most of them were.

[PowellPressburger]

Looks like all 3 Editions of ARROW's UK Release for SHOCK TREATMENT are all OOP

[Rayjg]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

Looks like all 3 Editions of ARROW's UK Release for SHOCK TREATMENT are all OOP

Fox/Disney title with no US release. Grab it while you can...

[dr727]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

Looks like all 3 Editions of ARROW's UK Release for SHOCK TREATMENT are all OOP

Thank you for the heads up—I missed this one on release. I was able to grab a copy of the Nation edition at a charity shop for a reasonable fee.