Kerborus

Just a quick thought I had. While I enjoy Criterions catalogue, there have been times I wish that one of my favorite major studio American films could get the 'Criterion Treatment'. Can you imagine a Criterion treatment for say Star Wars or The Godfather?

Would it be possible for studios, after they have released their film and kept it in the market for 2-3 years and soaked up all of the initial purchase funds, to go to Criterion and partner up to double dip? With Criterions attention to detail and extras (commentary, interviews, documentaries) and of course their name and spine number combined with say an already good restoration/transfer and the movies name, wouldn't there be even more money to be leached for the studios?

Criterion could benefit from having more well known American titles (besides say The Rock or Armeggedon) and of course not having to foot the whole bill and making something in the process.

Win win for everyone, including fans? What do you all think?

manicsounds

There have been many threads about movies that should be Criterionized,
but it just won't happen with many films out there.

Why would the big studios want to license their biggest films to an indie company like them? If Paramount licenced Godfather to them, Criterion would make a profit, but Paramount will get barely anything......

PopcornTreeCt

Studios wouldn't make enough money. Basically, the studios dump their films that they don't think will sell well on Criterion. But those bastards at Fox decided to keep and release a crappy version of Paris, Texas when they could of easily licensed it to Criterion.

Jackskeleton

Actually, no it wouldn't. Eventually folks will wait on buying the inferior version that the studio releases for the Criterion Collection release. This will lose studios money. Also, why bother in scratching an enemies back when there is plenty of money to be made by simply double dipping yourself.

Back with LD's, Criterion was given those rights because the studios didn't want to deal with a new format. So studios were happy to sell those rights to criterion cheaply. Criterion Collection went out and got all those extra features and bonus material themselves.

If given the situation, I doubt Criterion would be able to fully match the sort of treatment some of the double dipped studio releases would have because of the amount of money the bigger studios have to spend on them.

This would be like Fox giving the distribution rights of their produced shows to MGM or Sony to release for a small piece of the pie. Just not going to happen.

As it stands, I like what Criterion is doing. They are taking titles that those bigger studios do not want to handle and giving them treatment that they deserve. The bigger studios are for the most part, giving their big titles the treatment they deserve 90% of the time. I doubt Criterion Collection could keep those high standards in those smaller obscure titles if they had to deal with a lot of other big name titles at once.

pro-bassoonist

Quite frankly.......NO.

Pro-B

FilmFanSea

Most studios (Warner, Paramount, Columbia TriStar, MGM/UA) have a policy of not licensing their products to third parties (such as Criterion). The other majors (Universal, Fox, Buena Vista) have shown a limited inclination towards licensing titles they don't feel they can make money on (although that attitude can change over time ... witness Universal's attitude towards its W.C. Fields films).

As for the "big" titles, Criterion was able to license a number of these during the laserdisc era, but DVD has lower production costs (and retail prices), leading to its widespread adoption by consumers and increasing profits by distributors. The major studios would be fools to license out their big money-making films to Criterion in the current climate, because:

(a) Consumers have shown little hesitation in upgrading to special editions for their favorite films, and
(b) Most of the major studios feel they can produce DVD editions every bit as "special" as those in the Criterion Collection (certainly Warner has been able to)

In the era of DVD, circa 2004-2005, studios have little use for Criterion (so long as consumers continue to multi-dip), and Criterion's business plan doesn't rely on licensing blockbusters (for which, many of us thank the gods).

Dan Average

What's so crappy about Fox's Paris, Texas release? Audio commentary, deleted scenes and Cannes footage for seven bucks is a pretty sweet deal. I think we're getting a bit spoiled here.

Joe Molotov

I like what Criterion does, but I don't hope for any of my favorite movies to get the "Criterion Treatment". Frankly, why would I want to pay $40 for a Criterion Edition of a movie, when I could hope that the company that owns the rights to it will put out a really good $20 Special Edition instead? Just look at The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. Does anyone really think Criterion could have done a better job than what New Line did with that? Even if they did, they wouldn't sell it for $25-30. Look at Warner Bros. and the 2-Disc Special Editions they've released for movies like Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Treasure of Sierra Madre, etc. Look at the fabulous restoration job they did on The Adventures of Robin Hood. Those DVDs are about as nice as any I could hope for.

marty888

I love Criterion editions, and believe that they have helped shape the home video market place - even those who never heard of Criterion are reaping the benefits of their innovatons in extras and bonus features.

But now (as has been pointed out above) that major studios have realized the benefits (and potential profits) that SE's can provide, we have seen many releases that are "Criterion quality". The studios will retain the rights to the mass appeal titles, and Criterion will continue to dazzle us with their superb releases of niche titles.