Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[Blu-Velvet]

Originally Posted by davidthenikonuser

In Like Flint and Our Man Flint?

I've never seen these. Thinking about picking them up.

They look like James Bond spoof type flicks.

Tell me a bit about them.

Good reviews and user reviews of both at

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Our-M.../58589/#Review
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Our-M...9/#UserReviews

and

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/In-Li.../58588/#Review
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/In-Li...8/#UserReviews

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by goldie1970

356 on The Egyptian
416 on Bye Bye Birdie
941 Experiment in Terror
1055 Steel Magnolias
1483 Bell, Book, and Candle
1784 Blue Lagoon

I doubt that is an accurate number for Bye Bye Birdie .

[klauswhereareyou]

I wonder if any of the titles that are barely selling that have been out for a while might go down in price at some point? I'd pick up Roots of Heaven and Desiree if they were 20 bucks.

[jetthead]

Originally Posted by JoeDeM

since the Flint movies have proven to be good sellers maybe TT should go after the Matt Helm set, maybe even as their first box set

[Show spoiler]

Hell yeah!

IMO the Matt Helm films are better than the Flint movies.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by klauswhereareyou

I wonder if any of the titles that are barely selling that have been out for a while might go down in price at some point? I'd pick up Roots of Heaven and Desiree if they were 20 bucks.

Lowering the prices (on slow moving titles) would kill their business model. I would never do it, if I were them.

[jetthead]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

Lowering the prices (on slow moving titles) would kill their business model. I would never do it, if I were them.

Absolutely. Apart from the occasional title like Fright Night or Christine, I think the majority of people would wait for this price drop.

No way will it ever happen.

[EddieLarkin]

I could see them doing a price drop after the 3 year licence of a title is up and they still have copies left over. Titles like Rapture and The Roots of Heaven maybe.

[crazferret]

They are giving away a sealed copy of Twilight Time's CHRISTINE on this site...

http://www.theaterthoughts.com/?p=4452

[MTRodaba2468]

Originally Posted by krasnoludek

Put 3000 of a movie in your cart, then click update. If that doesn't work, try putting it in your wishlist. The only one for which this method doesn't seem to be working (at least for me) is Song of Bernadette.

I finally got The Song Of Bernadette's count to update in my wishlist. As of right now, assuming the cart game is accurate, it's got 1708 copies left...

[Arkadin]

god I would give anything if people would stop posting about the "cart game".

[dsman71]

+1 Arkadian, big PLUS one

[benricci]

Originally Posted by EddieLarkin

I could see them doing a price drop after the 3 year licence of a title is up and they still have copies left over. Titles like Rapture and The Roots of Heaven maybe.

Once the 3 years are up and they still have unsold stock, expect them to dump a lot of their slower titles at lower prices. It makes more business sense to cut your losses and at least make something back on your investment, rather than holding on to a bunch of product collecting dust.

[Dex Robinson]

Originally Posted by benricci

Once the 3 years are up and they still have unsold stock, expect them to dump a lot of their slower titles at lower prices. It makes more business sense to cut your losses and at least make something back on your investment, rather than holding on to a bunch of product collecting dust.

I wouldn't expect that.

For one thing, their existing Blu-ray stock would only lose value when those titles were issued by another company at a lower price...and I very much doubt that will happen.

And I would expect that a number of Twilight Times titles won't be released by another company. That especially applies to the slow sellers.

There is a fantasy among many people that, when three years have passed, these titles will move on to another company and go into wide release. And that MIGHT happen for a small number of their titles. But it likely WON'T happen for most of them.

I very much doubt that anybody will have any interest in reissuing the low volume sellers. And, if they aren't released by someone else, Twilight Time has zero incentive to lower the price. Twilight Time doesn't lose the right to sell their stock after a given time, they only lose their period of exclusivety.

If Twilight Time has XXX copies of RAPTURE (or whatever title) still left in three years and nobody else issues it, you can bet that price won't budge.

[Cinemach]

Originally Posted by benricci

Once the 3 years are up and they still have unsold stock, expect them to dump a lot of their slower titles at lower prices. It makes more business sense to cut your losses and at least make something back on your investment, rather than holding on to a bunch of product collecting dust.

I don't even think they'd do that. Especially since the end of the license doesn't portend an immediate re-release elsewhere.

And if there is still stock after three years, there probably won't be too much of a push to re-release even at a lower price point, because it won't be seen as worth the time.

EDIT: Looks like Dex above stated my same points, just a little quicker to the punch.

[jstxanothrxstory]

They won't lower their price. The Egyptian still sits at $39.95 even though it's been released in a few European countries; their prices for As Good as It Gets and The Blue Lagoon haven't budged even with the upcoming German releases; Philadelphia will likely still sell at $29.95 even though it's also getting a German release.

[Arkadin]

just to show how strange the Fox distribution has gotten In Old Arizona has just been announced for a wide release in June.
I mean, it's a cool choice, but just thinking that a film like Leave Her To Heaven is going to be limited to 3000 while In Old Arizona is getting a wide release uhh.........wow.

[benricci]

Originally Posted by Cinemach

I don't even think they'd do that. Especially since the end of the license doesn't portend an immediate re-release elsewhere.

And if there is still stock after three years, there probably won't be too much of a push to re-release even at a lower price point, because it won't be seen as worth the time.

Flash forward - so after many years of not moving these titles at $30 a pop, they're just going to sit on unsold units instead of selling them off at a discount to at least recoup some of the money they spent on them? For what purpose, to prove some sort of point?

That makes no sense at all. You think they'd rather make no money off unsold stock?

Five years down the road, if there are still loser titles that they have like 1000-2000 copies of, I can guarantee they'll be dumping them at a discount. We're not talking about Christine here, we're talking about films that for years no one wanted at $30, at least maybe they can get a few bites at a lower price and clear some space in the warehouse.

[popeflick]

Originally Posted by benricci

Flash forward - so after many years of not moving these titles at $30 a pop, they're just going to sit on unsold units instead of selling them off at a discount to at least recoup some of the money they spent on them? For what purpose, to prove some sort of point?

That makes no sense at all. You think they'd rather make no money off unsold stock?

Five years down the road, if there are still loser titles that they have like 1000-2000 copies of, I can guarantee they'll be dumping them at a discount. We're not talking about Christine here, we're talking about films that for years no one wanted at $30, at least maybe they can get a few bites at a lower price and clear some space in the warehouse.

I think that's possible but unlikely. First off, let's consider a TT warehouse: 20-30 titles of 1000 units each. That's not a lot of boxes frankly, I believe it's 50 blus to a case that measures 6x5x24-30 ish? 400 of of those would not constitute a warehouse. More like a walk in storage unit.

I also think a MAJOR component of "3 years from now" hypothesis are missing the evolution of the marketplace towards streaming, while all us video philes are cloistered here wanting the best picture. People will want convenience in the long run, and with TVs shipping now with built in apps, etc I'm convinced blu ray might be the last physical format 'for the masses.' It'll just be too easy to pull stuff up on a menu and most won't care about the difference in picture quality, because by and large it'll be HD enough for them.

With that in mind, it's hard to say what they'd do with their stock, but I REALLY doubt studios 3 years from now will put any TT title that hasn't sold out back into the blu ray market, and they just might simply see the popularity of FN and Christine as a means to charge a premium on those streaming films, while again bypassing the blu ray market.

What people knashing their teeth over don't realize is that these numbers (3000) etc are based on ease of residual payouts to unions. If streaming REALLY takes off in 3 years, then I wouldn't see Sony deviating from their model of simplicity and they'd have no desire to put even the sellouts on blu, just move the revenue generation to streaming and be done with blu ray so they're not tracking separate numbers. We'll see but it wouldn't surprise me in the least, given their recent course.

[benricci]

Originally Posted by popeflick

I also think a MAJOR component of "3 years from now" hypothesis are missing the evolution of the marketplace towards streaming, while all us video philes are cloistered here wanting the best picture. People will want convenience in the long run, and with TVs shipping now with built in apps, etc I'm convinced blu ray might be the last physical format 'for the masses.' It'll just be too easy to pull stuff up on a menu and most won't care about the difference in picture quality, because by and large it'll be HD enough for them.

Exactly.

So with so many people turning to streaming (say 3-5 years from now), there will be even fewer potential customers for these languishing blu-rays.

This is yet another reason that if they still have thousands of unsold units just lying around a few years from now, they will likely want to dump them at that time while there's still ANY interest in these obscure films on a physical format.

I can't imagine that the demand will go up at all for the vast majority of their catalog, so sticking to a $29.99 selling point for titles that didn't move units for several years makes no sense. They'll have to discount them at some point in the future (whether that's 3 years from now, 5 years, 6 years, whatever), unless they want to make a killer blu-ray fort out of dusty, unsold stock.

[popeflick]

Originally Posted by benricci

Exactly.

So with so many people turning to streaming (say 3-5 years from now), there will be even fewer potential customers for these languishing blu-rays.

This is yet another reason that if they still have thousands of unsold units just lying around a few years from now, they will likely want to dump them at that time while there's still ANY interest in these obscure films on a physical format.

I can't imagine that the demand will go up at all for the vast majority of their catalog, so sticking to a $29.99 selling point for titles that didn't move units for several years makes no sense. They'll have to discount them at some point in the future (whether that's 3 years from now, 5 years, 6 years, whatever), unless they want to make a killer blu-ray fort out of dusty, unsold stock.

But the contrary to that is also the TT IS a videophile label, and without any of us really knowing the sales figures (the cart game is BS folks...), I can't see a sustained price drop but potentially a one off sale. They'll have incentive to keep their prices high IMO because they ARE a boutique label and their base will pay the premium. Maybe they go CC sale once/twice a year route, but we won't see many TT titles in a bargain bin, maybe Demterius?

And as far as their "sales" go, it appears they have a very nice turnout for those autographed copies. Many people here have said they purchased a few titles they wouldn't have to drive their cart total up with the intention of flipping their Christine to cover the costs. One guy said he paid $6/TT disc this way. That's how they'll be moving their product aggresively and it seems to be working for them.

But again, there is NOT a vast humongous warehouse that needs product blown out for space. Their reasons would have to be different, like going out of business.