The VVitch (Witch) - A New England Folktale

[Davidian]

A devoutly Christian family in 1630's New England, struggles to survive living along the edge of a vast wilderness. When one of their five children goes missing and their life-sustaining crops fail, they fall victim to paranoia and fear as they begin to turn on one another. The decimation of their family unit creates an opportunity for incredible evil to emerge and attempt to destroy them all.

Unfortunately barebones, however judging by the BDinfo scan it appears we get the superior UK Version with marginally better compression and slightly wider aspect ratio.


BDinfo:

Disc Title: THE_WITCH_UPB1
Disc Size: 30,181,771,328 bytes
Protection: AACS
BD-Java: Yes
Playlist: 00800.MPLS
Size: 29,341,612,032 bytes
Length: 1:32:32.838
Total Bitrate: 42.27 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 33088 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3426 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
Audio: Czech / DTS Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: Hungarian / DTS Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: Polish / DTS Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit
Audio: Russian / DTS Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitle: English / 29.425 kbps
Subtitle: Czech / 16.329 kbps
Subtitle: Hungarian / 24.659 kbps
Subtitle: Polish / 22.083 kbps
Subtitle: Russian / 22.039 kbps
Subtitle: Arabic / 12.496 kbps
Subtitle: Bulgarian / 23.715 kbps
Subtitle: Danish / 22.357 kbps
Subtitle: Finnish / 23.514 kbps
Subtitle: Greek / 25.976 kbps
Subtitle: Hindi / 20.379 kbps
Subtitle: Icelandic / 25.376 kbps
Subtitle: Norwegian / 23.217 kbps
Subtitle: Portuguese / 23.875 kbps
Subtitle: Romanian / 23.252 kbps
Subtitle: Swedish / 22.556 kbps
Subtitle: Czech / 0.246 kbps
Subtitle: Hungarian / 0.208 kbps

[Show spoiler]Free UVCode: UYR6YDHWSCR6R5W8

Enjoy!

[Hucksta G]

Looking forward to picking this up and watching it again, comes out in NZ on 10th Aug. Not sure if that cover art represents the film well but oh well, I prefer the poster art with the goat on it.

[LordCrumb]

Found some of the dialog a bit difficult to understand, near the start of the film.. but you kind of clicked onto it as it went on.

[donthitpause]

[uinstitches]

Why did the Australia release get no special features again?

[hypnotoad8128]

It's generally down to two things in the game;

A: They weren't able to licence the supplements from lionsgate.

or

B: They didn't want to stump up the costs to licence the supplements.

[rip63]

I sold my local copy and imported the US release. Very much worth it because the extras are great.

[uinstitches]

Originally Posted by hypnotoad8128

It's generally down to two things in the game;

A: They weren't able to licence the supplements from lionsgate.

or

B: They didn't want to stump up the costs to licence the supplements.

That's silly, why would an audio commentary + 30min Q&A panel be particularly expensive to license? This movie got 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and is fairly well known in Australia (I'm assuming) so skimping on costs for a few measly bonus features is strange.

And why would Lionsgate block them if that's what it is. I really wish an explanation was available somewhere. I'd be interested to read what goes into these sort of decisions.

[hypnotoad8128]

Originally Posted by uinstitches

That's silly, why would an audio commentary + 30min Q&A panel be particularly expensive to license? This movie got 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and is fairly well known in Australia (I'm assuming) so skimping on costs for a few measly bonus features is strange.

And why would Lionsgate block them if that's what it is. I really wish an explanation was available somewhere. I'd be interested to read what goes into these sort of decisions.

It might sound silly to you, but any and all supplements (making of/audio commentaries/photo galleries etc), as well as audio tracks and something as simple as subtitles on a disc cost licensing money to their creators, and some of those, can end up being quite expensive, like into the thousands of dollars or more. You might think they're "skimping", but from a financial standpoint, it makes perfect sense to them. All the rotten tomatoes ratings in the world and moderate consumer knowledge doesn't mean anything from a financial point of view to distributors, they look at the metrics of a specific title and make decisions from there.

Distribution rights also vary from region to region, hence why they may have been unable to obtain the rights.

An excellent example is Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge, a film he self-funded mind you, comes with an excellent hour-long making-of documentary that Lionsgate commissioned. When the film was released here in Australia on Bluray on Gibson's own Icon label, the documentary was AWOL. Unsurprisingly, this documentary has only shown up on releases that are distributed by Lionsgate.

Content licensing can be expensive and this is before we get to the replication and manufacturing costs of the discs themselves.

In 2006, ars Technica did an article about the cost of licensing and manufacturing a single Bluray title and put those costs at around $40,000 per title. Now in the intervening years, manufacturing costs have come down immensely, but they still aren't cheap.

Here are some older links about manufacturing here, as well as a recent discussion on these forums;

https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/03/6400-2/

https://www.media-tech.net/fileadmin...0Licensing.pdf

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=320996

Don't forget, there would be minimum replication runs that would need to be done as well. These all add up. If those minimum replication runs don't sell out at retail here, then they end up in the clearance bin which means money lost to the distributor after the retailer hits them up for their rebates and price protections. Remember DVD vastly outsells Bluray in this country even today, and those total sold numbers on all formats are shrinking at an accelerated rate in this streaming focussed world.

When it comes to any market, but especially the Australian physical media market, financial decisions will always take precedence, hell sometimes we're just lucky to get <insert film name here> released on disc at all and it's only going to get worse. Our market is so infinitesimally small and continuing to shrink, and certain titles will be ignored completely if they don't think <insert film name here> will recoup its costs. Many titles are already AWOL in this country.

[rip63]

Originally Posted by uinstitches

That's silly, why would an audio commentary + 30min Q&A panel be particularly expensive to license? This movie got 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and is fairly well known in Australia (I'm assuming) so skimping on costs for a few measly bonus features is strange.

90% on Rotten Tomatoes means nothing really, especially in Australia, and this film isn't that well known here. I've mentioned the title to some people and no-one knows what I'm talking about. It was not a some big commercial success here and they're not gonna spend money on licensing extra features when they likely won't make the dough back. The market for it simply isn't here. It does suck though, yes, especially when they want you to "buy Australian"... This is why people import, because of inferior product we often get shafted with. I mean, the director's followup, The Lighthouse, didn't even get a blu-ray release here.

[uinstitches]

Don't Universal distribute it? I'm sure there's plenty of examples of other titles they distribute that are lesser known that still had their bonus features in tact... But licensing is expensive, hey?

It's also a 2015 title, well before the COVID or streaming excuse.

Originally Posted by hypnotoad8128

It's generally down to two things in the game;

A: They weren't able to licence the supplements from lionsgate.

Was it even A24 or Lionsgate who specifically commisioned the commentary and Q&A panel? Who commissions such standard extras for a Blu-ray release but restricts it from Australia? This ain't a 1-hour making-of documentary either.

Obviously you don't know the specifics and can only share what broad knowledge you have but "licensing is expensive" is kind of a cop-out answer. I'm sure the real reason is a little different, and a little more interesting than that essay.

[LMFAObros]

The UK release is missing bonus features as well, maybe lions gate were asking too much and universal didn’t want to cough up.

[lateralspin]

Originally Posted by LMFAObros

The UK release is missing bonus features as well

Instead of the Salem Panel Q&A, Second Sight provides a BFI London Film Festival Q&A

Instead of A Primal Folktale featurette, Second Sight provides a featurette also called A Primal Folktale, which probably covers the same ground.

Second Sight also carries the same audio commentary on the U.S. release, and adds an additional audio commentary by a film writer.

In addition, Second Sight includes more interviews, and a short film called Brothers.

[uinstitches]

Originally Posted by lateralspin

Instead of A Primal Folktale featurette, Second Sight provides a featurette also called A Primal Folktale, which probably covers the same ground.

Huh.

[rip63]

I upgraded from the barebones local edition to the US version with the extras and superior artwork, including slipcover (not that I care about slipcovers). That'll do me.