matome

Weak

Adam Tyner

Not at all.

Criterion and Blue Underground both release a consistent sort of product and have gone to the effort of trying to build a brand. Criterion's bread and butter is high-quality presentations of prestigious and important films. Blue Underground is more or less the Criterion of cult flicks.

Anchor Bay has never made any effort to build a brand name for itself in that way, and they made the overwhelming majority of their money selling exercise videos and kiddie fare. Starz didn't buy them to capitalize on the amazing Anchor Bay name. They bought 'em because they had an infrastructure already in place and a steady source of income.

Hell, if anything, Anchor Bay has done more damage to the Anchor Bay name over the past few years than Starz ever could.

Snowmaker

This thread made me think of this song:

Hear 'n Aid - Stars

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captainjoe

This is absolutely horrible.

R.I.P. AB

John Oaks

I'm going to miss that Anchor Bay logo, it was almost like seeing the Shaw Bros. logo before the movie started.

DVDFreaker

How dumb!

dpz301

sounds like a porno company name, haha.

Erik68

It IS the same company as the Movie channels...

it IS the same logo, not a similar logo.

http://www.anchorbayentertainment.co...asp?p=About_Us

fuzzbox

I think you mean "changed it to Lifetime Network Moviez"

-jason

scarredgod

add me to the list of people who think this is just silly and pointless.

tylergfoster

What I meant in my original post by saying that "it makes it sound like it's a product of the network" is that by putting that brand on there, it is like, say, Army of Darkness is somehow a movie owned and/or produced by Starz. I mean, HBO and Showtime have DVD labels, so it seems unusual for Starz to not leave the Anchor Bay name in place and reserve the name for if and when they decide to create original programming.

Bob_Bobbson

Call me crazy, but maybe the horror titles might retain the Anchor Bay name at least.

If you go to the catalog section of their site, every genre's page is titled to reflect that genre. However, the Horror Page is titled "Anchor Bay Horror"

Is this perhaps the reasoning behind the "Anchor Bay Collection" banner that has been put on the last few high profile Horror releases from them?

Joe Molotov

How much name recognition do their movies have outside the industry and forums like this? I haven't seen Phantasm Special Edition flying off the shelves.

Sean O'Hara

Why would the sales numbers drop? Do you think a significant number of people are going to say, "Ooo, a two disc limited edition of Re-animator with a hypodermic highligher! Oh, but it's released by a company called Starz. Pass!"

Rogue588

That's probably the only reason they did it..

Seantn

And why exactly would their sales go down?

Does a customer look at the DVD for Phantasm and think "Oh, I LOVE this movie! I have to buy it! Oh wait a minute, what's this? STARZ DVD? Fuck that, i'm not buying it."

marlboro_man

Considering what is currently going on with Anchor Bay UK (they now release pretty much nothing but what they call "budget" DVDs - fucked up barebones versions of their old releases), I wouldn't be surprised to see them go out of business very soon.

Joel Goodsen

I know its only a name but Anchor Bay have been a top class company. The main thing I am worried about is the output more than the name though. Maybe it's me but I dont seem to see many slasher movies being released lately, and there is so many yet to be released.

Here's hoping a few more slashers will be put out on DVD soon.

TomOpus

Believe it or not there are people who may not know of the change but have purchased Anchor Bay movies in the past. If they see a movie with the Starz logo they might think it's a cable version of a movie or made for cable movie. Just like if I see the name Blue Underground or Tartan Asia Extreme, I would take a closer look at a movie.

If they were smart they would keep the Anchor Bay name but just below it say "A Starz Entertainment Company". Maybe make a quick mention during the DVD opening logo. There needs to be period of transition so the consumer will connect the Starz brand to Anchor Bay.

Wildo1966

I'll throw my 2 cents in here....I was at Target a few weeks ago looking at the new release dvds..I saw a new horror dvd called 'Dead And Deader', looked like a cool zombie movie...I looked at the back and saw 'Starz' was the company putting the dvd out, I immediately thought it was a made for cable movie from the Starz network and I put it back. If it would have said Anchor Bay on the back I probably would have bought it....Most people will think of the cable company when they see Starz.....

dullboy

This is the way it is right now on the recent Phantasm III dvd. Wonder if it will stay that way.

islandclaws

Horrendous idea, but if they don't change up the logos on the packaging I'll live with it. I like all of my little ships on the spine for my AB titles.

And as for BU: According to Lustpig, they're on the way out.

sracer

I think that for those who are interested in the titles carried by Anchor Bay, "very possibly".

The name "Anchor Bay" has attached to it, a reputation for quality. In a similar way, "Madacy" has a reputation of producing crap. "Diamond" has a reputation of using laserdiscs as their source for their DVDs. "Platinum" is another name associated with junk.

So, when someone examines the case of a disc and sees "starz", it is a high probability that they will think of "starz" as another "Madacy", "Diamond", or "Platinum".

dollfins1

anchor bay has mostly positive name recognition (at least in my book) since i am a big horror film fan. i don't understand why they would do such a thing since they already have somewhat of a following. i agree with most of the others and think that their choice of the name "starz" is pretty lame.

d2cheer