Why have Disney & Warner Bros given up on releasing their vintage shorts to Blu-ray?

[Bandit Tajomaru]

Its because those classic shorts contain Politically Incorrect stuff that these Hollywood execs. don't want people to see. Look at the WB Tom and Jerry fiasco. Disney only released the treasures on DVD because Roy Disney fought for them. Disney also only released a limited number of each set so that the collectors would buy up all the copies quickly.

[Ernest Rister]

Good people, Disney preserved their entire pre-60's animation library in 4k. They did it years ago. Shorts, features, even some of their WWII propaganda.

[javi92]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

Seriously, the demand would be crazy for these titles as a deluxe set:

• Silly Symphonies
• Mickey Mouse in Black and White
• Mickey Mouse in Living Color
• The Chronological Donald
• The Complete Goofy
• The Complete Pluto

Well, I can't speak for others, but I would sell organs if I had to to pick up (non-degrained) blu-ray upgrades of these sets.

[Jar Jar Stinks]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Good people, Disney preserved their entire pre-60's animation library in 4k. They did it years ago. Shorts, features, even some of their WWII propaganda.

http://disneydigitalstudio.com/3102/...or-the-future/

Okay, they preserved them. But for whom? They're not on Blu-ray.

[Nocturnaloner]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

http://disneydigitalstudio.com/3102/...or-the-future/

Okay, they preserved them. But for whom? They're not on Blu-ray.

For history. For posterity. And of course, for the value and profit of their company.

The end of physical media is a bid for tighter corporate control as much as anything. Fortunately, the consumer demands convenience and instant gratification above all, so the corporations will give us that in place of ownership.

Within a couple of decades, one possible scenario is that in order to own anything on physical media, you'll have to pirate it.

[JackKnightStarman]

Nothing sells like gangbusters anymore when it comes to catalogue. You also have consumers that feel that prices they charge when first released are too high and won't buy them until they are Bargain binned. look at any number of threads, and people constantly say they'll wait till it hits $5 or $10.

Studios look at sales Numbers from first week to 90 days for profitabilty of title. you think they care if a title spikes a year or two after release? when they let any retailer Slash prices? No, they don't.

I said it in the Looney Tunes Master Thread, if you want to show them you want more, than buy in the first month. if you don't, then no more will be released. and look at what the numbers were. lower than the previous two.

So you think Spider-man "94 will sell? Maybe, Maybe not. Disney doesn't seem to think a 20+ year old kids show multi volume set will. So they wont even incurr the cost on DVD. That ought to tell you something....

[Bandit Tajomaru]

Originally Posted by JackKnightStarman

I said it in the Looney Tunes Master Thread, if you want to show them you want more, than buy in the first month. if you don't, then no more will be released. and look at what the numbers were. lower than the previous two.

It didn't help that the Looney Tunes Blurays were filled double dips from the DVD sets with only a handful of new to disc shorts.

[TQType]

Originally Posted by steve_dave

But you are talking about physical home video sales.

The characters already have exposure on Disney Channel and Cartoon Network and with those come advertiser dollars which are far larger than home video sales.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse airs on Disney Junior, Disney Channel, and sometimes Disney XD. That's three outlets to expose kids to Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Pete, and various other Disney characters.

Now on the Warner side, Warner has had a few revival programs as well. The latest is Wabbit which features Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, and more Looney Tunes characters. And Cartoon Network loves to reair programming a lot so it's not like they don't put out Wabbit constantly.

Warner isn't going to lose any marketability for any Looney Tunes character due to "no shorts on Blu-ray." And to say that Disney markets to command top dollar is ridiculous. Both Disney and Warner overexpose their properties on the same level.

I can't speak for Cartoon Network, but Disney XD has extremely minimal advertising, so I doubt that beats what profits mMOD physical media sales could generate.

It's possible that the carriage rates would be better (as the channel is usually included in most basic cable packages), but still, Disney Movie Club exclusives are low-risk, high reward, and targets people who you know would buy the product.

On top of that, there are no distribution worries. Just seems like an easy lay-up for us physical media lovers.

Heck, I'd love it if they were at least available on DMA, but a nice BD set of the Disney treasures catalogue would be preferred.

[KG204]

Originally Posted by TQType

I can't speak for Cartoon Network, but Disney XD has extremely minimal advertising, so I doubt that beats what profits mMOD physical media sales could generate.

It's possible that the carriage rates would be better (as the channel is usually included in most basic cable packages), but still, Disney Movie Club exclusives are low-risk, high reward, and targets people who you know would buy the product.

On top of that, there are no distribution worries. Just seems like an easy lay-up for us physical media lovers.

Heck, I'd love it if they were at least available on DMA, but a nice BD set of the Disney treasures catalogue would be preferred.

Even if they don't go that route, I just want another re release of the treasures line since I was too young to collect those as they came out.

[KG204]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

Disney has stopped caring about it's legacy. It's all about Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars now.

What I don't understand is why they don't just make sets available direct-to-consumer. They'd make 100% more profit.

Seriously, the demand would be crazy for these titles as a deluxe set:

• Silly Symphonies
• Mickey Mouse in Black and White
• Mickey Mouse in Living Color
• The Chronological Donald
• The Complete Goofy
• The Complete Pluto

The issue becomes having to set up the infrastructure to handle that, which could be costly, or pay someone like Amazon, which means splitting profits plus other fees Amazon may have. There is also the issue where they might decide they have plans later for them that if they do that, they might be able to persue other avenues. I'll give an example:

For a long time, Ducktales the movie on DVD was only available on Disney Movie Club. The point on having such a notable title in the Club was to entice people to join the club who otherwise may not have had anything else that interested them. If Duck tales was general release, you can bet there would have been a lot less DMC memberships over the years.

So just because they don't have an idea what to do with the classic shorts right now, doesnt mean they won't later.

[AeroK]

Originally Posted by blurayfriend

Ducktales NEEDS to be finished, and there were only 12 episodes left of Chip n Dale or something. Come on! The worst by far though, is the non-release of the 1994 Spider-man series, which Disney owns the rights too, would sell like gangbusters, and just sits on it because it would "conflict" with sales of their Ultimate Spider-man show. What a crock!

I got tired of waiting and just got the OOP Region 2 volumes...third party sellers were beginning the price gouging by the time I found the final volume. I also got swindled into getting a bootleg set on eBay before that which was advertised as the Region 2 set but it was still decent quality.

[blurayfriend]

Originally Posted by AeroK

I got tired of waiting and just got the OOP Region 2 volumes...third party sellers were beginning the price gouging by the time I found the final volume. I also got swindled into getting a bootleg set on eBay before that which was advertised as the Region 2 set but it was still decent quality.

Can you play the Region 2 dvd's on any blu-ray player? I always forget about that since i'm so used to good ol' DVD players only working for Region 1.

And to whoever mentioned it above, of course it would sell! You're nuts if you think otherwise. This series is beloved. Disney is not refusing to release it due to lack of sales; they think it would sell TOO well that it would cannibalize sales of their Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon.

[The Edge]

Because people keep talking about how much they want them instead of showing the studios how much they want them.

And if by chance the studio actually releases something like that, no one is willing to fork over the money, therefore convincing the studios that their customers are all talk and no action.

[KG204]

Originally Posted by The Edge

Because people keep talking about how much they want them instead of showing the studios how much they want them.

And if by chance the studio actually releases something like that, no one is willing to fork over the money, therefore convincing the studios that their customers are all talk and no action.

For WB, main issue was that people who already had the dvd sets weren't interested in higher quality, they wanted more that haven't been remastered yet. And while the increased quality of blu ray was great, they don't necessarily care about that for all 450 cartoons (just going what has been remastered so far). WB gave a try, and I commend them for that, but when the numbers don't back up, nothing they can really do. Yes, they understand the need for remastering to preserve them, but doing something as large as Looney Tunes is no small feat, and very expensive. The best chance is a partnership with Cartoon Network where CN pays half the remastering for exclusive rights for a period of X years.

Disney on the other hand doesn't really have an excuse. They've never tried on Blu Ray, and it's been a while since the treasures line ended. Disney also has a better platform to test on, using Disney movies Anywhere for a trial run of Mickey shorts that have been preapproved (so it's alright for today's PC environment).

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by KG204

For WB, main issue was that people who already had the dvd sets weren't interested in higher quality, they wanted more that haven't been remastered yet. And while the increased quality of blu ray was great, they don't necessarily care about that for all 450 cartoons (just going what has been remastered so far). WB gave a try, and I commend them for that, but when the numbers don't back up, nothing they can really do. Yes, they understand the need for remastering to preserve them, but doing something as large as Looney Tunes is no small feat, and very expensive. The best chance is a partnership with Cartoon Network where CN pays half the remastering for exclusive rights for a period of X years.

Disney on the other hand doesn't really have an excuse. They've never tried on Blu Ray, and it's been a while since the treasures line ended. Disney also has a better platform to test on, using Disney movies Anywhere for a trial run of Mickey shorts that have been preapproved (so it's alright for today's PC environment).

I might be wrong, but I think you can buy some of the shorts individually on iTunes and DMA and there are shorts collections on Netflix.

[KG204]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

I might be wrong, but I think you can buy some of the shorts individually on iTunes and DMA and there are shorts collections on Netflix.

Yes, the Have a Laugh series. Still no HD blu ray test release to see if it'll shine (and with a title like Have a Laugh, won't get many people interested since it's not descriptive of the content).

[Ernest Rister]

DMA was pushing Lonesome Ghosts the other day.