Who decides price of older movies?

[bluDJ]

I'm curious as to who and/or how the price of BD is decided? There's been movies I loved, and wanted to add them to my collection. but when I see them as a release, I cannot justify paying the cost of $20-25 for a movie that should be no more than $8-10. Are they doing this to deter us from buying them in favor of streaming or is it some other gimmick?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by bluDJ

I'm curious as to who and/or how the price of BD is decided? There's been movies I loved, and wanted to add them to my collection. but when I see them as a release, I cannot justify paying the cost of $20-25 for a movie that should be no more than $8-10. Are they doing this to deter us from buying them in favor of streaming or is it some other gimmick?

The costs to restore an older movie can be considerable while at the same time the market for that older movie is likely a much smaller one. A smaller market from which to both recover costs and to make a modest profit. Sometimes age related damage can be extensive requiring Herculean restoration efforts.

No one goes through the expense and trouble to restore an old movie, to manufacture discs, market them, and then distribute them in the hopes that they lose money. If they wanted to promote streaming, they need only withhold the movie from disc and offer it exclusively via digital purchase and/or subscription streaming.

[Anthony P]

also there could be
- residuals to people involved in the film
- if it is a third party (e.g. Criterion) there is the cost of licensing the film for re-distribution

[BluBonnet]

At this point most studios seem to prefer licensing most of their older catalog titles rather than continue releasing them on their own, so obviously they didn't think there was enough demand at the price point they were comfortable with as being "profitable enough" for them.

So it all comes down to how much the independent distributors have to pay for the licensing, and how many titles they expect to sell.

(The obvious exception being Warner Archive, which is still releasing many catalog titles in-house.)

If you live in a major metropolitan area, you could probably find second-hand stores, or get some titles from the local library.