Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[bruceames]

Very informative post, Aclea. Thank you.

I know people tend to overestimate catalog sales by the major studios and think 3000 is a small amount, but it's really not the case at all (although it appears to be too small for movies like Fright Night, the reality is that much of the demand was driven by its limited availability).

[StingingVelvet]

Good stuff.

The future of physical media will have to be high-priced niche collectibles if moving even 1,000 copies is a question. Welcome back laserdisc.

[nitin]

could TT's model be better or different. Probably.

Are they releasing a lot of movies I want that no one else seems to be doing worldwide? Definitely.

So I dont mind spending personally.

[Keyser Soze.]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

Good stuff.

The future of physical media will have to be high-priced niche collectibles if moving even 1,000 copies is a question. Welcome back laserdisc.

I still buy laserdisc.

[deltatauhobbit]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

Very informative post, Aclea. Thank you.

I know people tend to overestimate catalog sales by the major studios and think 3000 is a small amount, but it's really not the case at all (although it appears to be too small for movies like Fright Night, the reality is that much of the demand was driven by its limited availability).

At least TT is adapting their release numbers depending on the popularity of the release, as evident by the recent Blog and Fright Night releases and a couple upcoming ones too. Could they have gotten away with more than 5000, probably, so I can see the future Christine release being 6000-8000.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by deltatauhobbit

At least TT is adapting their release numbers depending on the popularity of the release, as evident by the recent Blog and Fright Night releases and a couple upcoming ones too. Could they have gotten away with more than 5000, probably, so I can see the future Christine release being 6000-8000.

Sales of Fright Night and The Blob were largely driven by the hype of the limited model. There is no option to put off the purchase for later so everyone who wanted it was forced to buy it now. If Sony had released it instead I doubt it would have sold 5000 units because people have a tendency to put off releases that have no urgency to buy and often they never purchase it. Or they wait for a bargain bin price that never occurs.

I don't think Christine will be above 5000 units. Once you get past that number than the "limited edition" aspect pretty much loses its collector's appeal and they may as well sell it as unlimited (I think something similar happened to another movie sold from some other small distributor that was bumped from 5000 to 10000 units).

On top of that Blu-ray and physical media isn't getting any more popular so by next year the demand for Christine could be less, not more. Whether Twilight Time itself is getting more popular is up for debate.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by GenPion

The correlation is that for some films the market is perceived to be no bigger than those types of numbers. So for a catalog title to sell around that much through a big company.... they simply stop issuing the films themselves.

What the market is perceived to be and what the market is are two entirely different things. There is another notion that seems to be attached to your logic -- which is that because some titles do not sell more than 1000-2000 units with the high price tag, there is no bigger market. Nothing really can be further from the truth.

Originally Posted by GenPion

That is why you see so many releases from companies like Twilight Time and Olive, who license the films and do most of the work themselves. I am not talking about "big" catalog titles as those sell better and are far more likely to be released by the film companies who made them.

This isn't true either. The reason why you see more and more smaller titles on Blu-ray is determined by a variety of different factors. One of them is that mastering/production costs have gone down quite a lot since 2007. Another is that the declining revenue from DVD sales has made it easier to license. And another is that the bottom line for the majors -- this includes theatrical revenue -- has been eroded substantially in recent years.

Originally Posted by GenPion

Sony is the biggest supporter of 4K media. They are pushing it more than anyone else is. I don't see this as surprising given their involvement in Blu-ray media and UHD 4K Blu-ray launching around the end of the year.

If you don't see it as surprising, why did you give Sony as an example?

Originally Posted by GenPion

The masters you are referring to "appearing all over Europe" are only for a small percentage of films released by Twilight Time: Fright Night, Christine, As Good As It Gets, The Way We Were, Sleepless in Seattle, and a few others. MOST Twilight Time titles are only available from them and no other company WORLDWIDE.

Actually, this isn't the case -- Fox and Sony masters are licensed for a number of titles. In fact, a very large number of masters can be licensed and there are a lot more titles than the few you mention above. Of course, what it really interesting is that other parties have rejected old masters and produced new ones for titles they were interested in releasing on Blu-ray.

Originally Posted by GenPion

To get another point across: some of those titles (Fright Night and Christine being obvious answers) Twilight Time is aware there is a good market for them and that they will sell out. They NEED titles like that to create good business revenue. They can even use some of those profits towards the release of other less successful films. Sony, on the other hand, didn't see marketability of Fright Night on Blu-ray... and missed out on their own stateside opportunity.

What Sony sees as "marketability" is an entirely different subject. And I'd rather not debate it with you in this thread. Suffice to say, the fact that foreign branches are releasing these titles on Blu-ray proves that there isn't a standard policy in place.

Originally Posted by GenPion

Twilight Time arranged for the re-release and the inclusion of supplements (for the first time on any release). While the rest of the world got a barebones 25 GB disc with a weaker transfer and no HD audio. Also, taking into consideration that some foreign countries have bigger Blu-ray markets where certain films tend to sell better - and the fact that Sony followed on the heels of Twilight Time with a few releases of their own outside of the US is not that surprising.

The gap between what companies like Arrow and Carlotta Films provide in terms of supplemental features very quickly invalidates your point. And I don't see why one should not pick up Christine, for example, when it is exactly the type of release Sony could have released in the U.S.

Originally Posted by GenPion

Another thing to point out: Twilight Time has waited on materials to be available that are higher quality and seems to seek out strong masters where available.

And another point to be made here is that instead of waiting some companies have gone ahead and invested in brand new transfers. In fact, many routinely do it.

Originally Posted by GenPion

Olive Films, as an example you gave, I know they have issued a lot of releases that were from dated HD masters. The same goes for Kino Lorber. These might still be good releases that are worth investing in - especially for $15-20 a piece. However, they tend to be from older masters primarily and are also almost universally released on 25 GB discs. Twilight Time almost always does the opposite and you get much better bit-rates, 24 bit lossless audio, etc.

This is a notion that gets passed on various forums. The newer transfers come from Sony (and let's make it clear that there is a pretty good number of problematic transfers struck from old masters there as well, such as the ones As Good As It Gets and Steel Magnolias received) and some from Fox. At the end, it is the same mix that exists with the other companies you mentioned. The primary difference is that Olive Films, for example, tackle a much deeper pool of titles which really no one would have bothered to bring to Blu-ray.

Originally Posted by GenPion

Granted, I know some of those other companies include extras on certain titles, but the point is that I think Twilight Time seems to invest more of a effort, IMO, to giving a film the best release possible. This my own opinion and I will hold by it.

This is fine. You are entitled to have an opinion like everyone else. Fortunately, there is plenty of information around to make the seems part questionable as people compare releases from all over the world.

Originally Posted by GenPion

Criterion releases sell well. They are not the norm of catalog titles for older classic films. Criterion does exceptional work 99.9% of the time. They are one of my favorite companies. However, they have a long establishment as one of the best film companies around and with that they have also carried a built in fan-base. They set the bar high on the criteria of what they even consider releasing and everyone who is a fan is aware of that factor.

Twilight Time issues a lot of films that have fans but do you see these as films Criterion might have licensed and released? Maybe a few. But they didn't. Twilight Time did and are the reason they are available on Blu-ray.

I gave multiple examples before. The fact that some titles have come through this company does not mean that they exist only because of them. This should be very clear. Let me repeat again: At this point just about anything can be released on Blu-ray, from silent classics to contemporary festival hits.

Originally Posted by GenPion

If your argument mainly stems from you wanting to defend other smaller labels and their output: fine. I am glad for the market that exists. Money can still be made on Blu-ray and I don't want the market to change where they stop releasing titles. But I do think Twilight Time's business model is not quite as crazy as some others do.

My argument is very simple: There are plenty of small companies that do excellent work and I have mentioned a few. They do it without imposing restrictions on the consumer, and they do it very well. On the other side of the Atlantic the list is even bigger. I give credit where credit is due. And if half-truths are spoken to form flawed perceptions, I don't have a problem identifying them.

Thanks.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Aclea

But the remastering isn't being driven by home video, it's being driven by HD television and the increasing difficulty of selling non-HD mastered titles to networks, thus cutting off a huge revenue stream and safety net for studios. Remastering back-catalogue titles is a financial necessity but a hugely expensive one, and if they can get some money back by sub-licensing them at no risk, it helps subsidise it. Where there are viable titles they'll release them themselves (such as Lawrence of Arabia), but sometimes that's only in territories where the film did exceptionally good business on DVD (as with the German releases of Fright Night and Christine).

It is precisely the reason why I responded, because with or without Blu-ray the studios are upgrading their libraries.

Originally Posted by Aclea

With every studio cutting back on staff in their home video divisions as the value of the market for physical media declines (another 8% drop on sales and 14% on physical rentals over the last year), it's all about minimising risk these days - especially when badly performing titles can not only lose you your job but lead to a whole department being closed and farmed out to another studio as with Paramount moving their back-catalogue titles to Warner's ever-shrinking home video division (and Warners have already announced that their home entertainment division will bear the brunt of the 1000 job cuts the studio has planned).

There are multiple reasons why the studios have been forced to downgrade their staff in recent years. The overwhelming majority of them are in the theatrical production/distribution field.

Pro-B

[whiteberry]

Originally Posted by Aclea

But the remastering isn't being driven by home video, it's being driven by HD television and the increasing difficulty of selling non-HD mastered titles to networks, thus cutting off a huge revenue stream and safety net for studios.

Yep. This is why we are seeing so many MGM titles being licensed by Kino, Olive, Shout Factory, Twilight Time, etc. These HD masters were originally created by MGM for the MGM HD channel.

[RalphoR]

Excellent discussion. Makes me wonder how many movies have been mastered in HD? I wish there was an internet site that had this information for each movie studio. All those movies I've been waiting for to come out on Blu-ray.....it would make my waiting easier knowing at least that an HD transfer was made of those movies.

[RandyK]

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

What the market is perceived to be and what the market is are two entirely different things. There is another notion that seems to be attached to your logic -- which is that because some titles do not sell more than 1000-2000 units with the high price tag, there is no bigger market. Nothing really can be further from the truth.

Yet the reality is that the studios frequently abandon lines - like MGM/UA-Fox with the Woody Allen films or Fox with the Bob Newhart Show or Paramount with Bilko - because they've put them out in the marketplace and they simply didn't sell in viable numbers, leaving it to third parties to sublicense them for there to be any release of subsequent titles or seasons or. Sometimes that means a company with a wide distribution network like Shout, and others that means a small company with no sales force that has to pay royalties for 3000 copies upfront and hope they sell. And often those latter titles are ones that retailers who are devoting less and less shelf space to physical media wouldn't stock, leaving you to order them online anyway.

Frequently pricing simply isn't a factor in back-catalog titles: a $15 price point wouldn't mean that some titles sold over a thousand units, it would simply mean the studio would make less money on the few copies they did sell.

While we'd all like lower prices and not to have to deal with online dealer exclusives (be it TT, TCM or Scorpion), it's simply a fact of life that in today's marketplace our hobby is getting more expensive again.

Suffice to say, the fact that foreign branches are releasing these titles on Blu-ray proves that there isn't a standard policy in place.

This has been the policy in home video divisions since the early 90s - few titles are released in all twelve major retail territories, and they tend to be the new films. Back catalog releases are decided on a territory-by-territory basis depending on their popularity or lack of in any given territory. For example, Yankee Doodle Dandy was always a decent seller in the US but wasn't released in most foreign territories because of its extremely limited appeal there. Even at the height of retail video and DVD only a small fraction of back-catalogue titles were ever released outside the US.

At the same title titles that were exceptionally popular overseas would be released in specific foreign territories when no US release was available - France had a special edition of Man of the West way back in 2004, four years before a US release while Germany recently saw the fourth season of Hawaii Five-O get a Blu-ray release because it was the only territory where the series sold well enough on that format.

Local offices have always had a say in what gets released, and that frequently includes titles that simply aren't viable in the USA just as the USA frequently gets titles that no other territory does.

with or without Blu-ray the studios are upgrading their libraries.

Which doesn't mean it's viable for them to release them on BD or even DVD. Fox didn't want to release Rapture, for example, and on purely commercial terms that would seem to be a good call.

There are multiple reasons why the studios have been forced to downgrade their staff in recent years. The overwhelming majority of them are in the theatrical production/distribution field.

Not so: despite last year's dip Warners has regularly been seeing their global theatrical revenues rising over expectations while physical media and TV licensing revenues are both regularly decreasing and failing to meet targets. While their latest wave of job cuts is designed to make the bottom line look better to investors to persuade them not to sell next time Murdoch makes a takeover bid, it's telling that Warners has made no secret that it is the underperforming home video and, to a lesser extent, TV licensing divisions that will bear the brunt of the cuts. Like most companies the cuts are aimed at the weakest division - and home entertainment has seen a drop on all formats last year, with physical media taking the biggest hit:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/home-ent...014-1420578809

While the drop in theatrical revenues in the US is largely being offset by the growth in overseas markets, VOD and streaming aren't compensating for the drop in physical media revenue. That's why they've also stated that film and television production will not be affected by the cuts, with some of the savings from home entertainment, TV licensing, marketing and other departments going into theatrical production:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/warner-b...obs-1415127530

Film and television production groups aren't being affected by the layoffs. Warner Bros. is expected to invest at least some of the cost savings from layoffs into increased or bigger budget content production.

If physical media revenues were better and theatrical the problem, it would be theatrical bearing the brunt of the costs and home video that would see at least some of the savings invested in their division.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by RalphoR

Excellent discussion. Makes me wonder how many movies have been mastered in HD? I wish there was an internet site that had this information for each movie studio. All those movies I've been waiting for to come out on Blu-ray.....it would make my waiting easier knowing at least that an HD transfer was made of those movies.

What I find strangest is the somewhat erratic nature of what gets remastered when. While complete restorations are understandably rare (it cost a quarter of a million to do frame by frame restoration of key titles back in the late 90s) a lot of the titles that have been mastered in HD first don't necessarily seem to be the ones that get the most TV rotation - it's almost as if they're going through their archives from front row to back row rather than specifically targeting the most lucrative titles.

[schlock]

Very clever how the booklet covers for FIRST MEN and JTTCOTE connect like that.

[dragon53]

What TT movie(s) sold out the fastest and how long did they take to sell out?

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by dragon53

What TT movie(s) sold out the fastest and how long did they take to sell out?

Christine was the fastest...not sure how long though ...a few hours.

[dragon53]

The cover for the 4K JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH looks cool. I sure hope it's an improvement over the first remaster....I'm glad I never bought that one.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by dragon53

The cover for the 4K JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH looks cool. I sure hope it's an improvement over the first remaster....I'm glad I never bought that one.

Seems they did away with the border that was used for the FN reissue. Guess we'll see if this is also released in a clear Blu-ray case.

[RodChester]

Looking forward to getting Journey and First Men. I've never seen either but am looking forward to getting them.

[Page14]

Originally Posted by RandyK

[Show spoiler]

2 sci-fi Classics from generally the same era, with artwork designed to mesh with each other. Love it! Well done! (I'm talking about the artwork for what I'm assuming is for the booklet covers).

EDIT: I think it shows a certain amount of respect for these 2 movies/films.