I noticed they had Election in an island display at Meijers for around $9. It had a cover I had never seen before:

vs.

I looked it up on Kazart and it seems that all 3 (?) releases are OOP. Anyone know what's going on? I can't even find that it has even been re-released in the last 6 years.

From a marketing standpoint it makes sense. Reese Witherspoon is very popular right now, and in the original "Big Head" cover (which is a good cover) you can't really tell that it is her. In the new one, you can. And they now have her name on there. It looks poorly photo-shopped, and I don't like it, but they did it to capitalize on her recent success.

Oh, I see that her name actually is on the old cover. I didn't realize that at first.

I saw this, I think the new cover came out around the same day Walk the Line did. Paramount has re-done a few of their older titles with crappier new art. The other I saw was The Gift with Cate Blanchett.

I received a copy of U Turn with a new cover more prominently featuring Jennifer Lopez so this is not unusual.

On the original cover I always thought she looked like Drew Barrymore.

This is a very bizarre movie, and I'd love to be with the people who pick it up and say, "Oh, it's Ferris Bueller and that girl from Sweet Home Alabama!"

Yeah, that'd be a good time...

Yeah, I noticed the artwork change for Election as well, it's still the same disc, with maybe disc art now. I don't really know. Does anybody know if the disc art is different? Great film, but there is no need to upgrade, since it's the same disc.

I also noticed they did an artwork change on The Gift to, saw it at my Wal-Mart, and this as well.

I personally love that studios do this, it keeps their catalog titles fresh, as long as it is the same exact disc, new artwork, with maybe disc art as the only new aspect of it, and they don't make a good disc, like 16:9 and extra features, into a Full Screen only, no extra features travesty like Sony does.

upc is also the same. Paramount has started doing this and calling them repacks. Ghost is coming up soon as well.

It actually came out a few months ago. Nothing special about it, just different artwork.

= J

I always though it looked like Kate Hudson.

Saxon

I've found it odd that the cover art on the rereleases is almost always worse than the original.

studios have this effin' urge to cut-n-paste heads on bodies that don't match, making the artwork look amateurish. don't know if that's worse or the floating heads everywhere.

I don't think that the new cover for Election looks that bad. Might just be me, don't know.

this movie is really deserving of a criterion release, as with all of payne's films. but this one easily has the worst transfer of all of them currently, and i would love to see it touched up.

Paramount has about 20-30 upcoming titles being repackaged with new artwork. Everything from Chinatown to Ghost. It's nothing special... they all are the same discs with newer photoshopped fronts.

they have also dropped the price. i picked up the new election dvd at walmart for 7.86 or something.

Do you have a list of titles handy?

Obviously they want to play this up more as a teen film to cater to the youth market. She's wearing a backback and they are in front of lockers... We gets it, Paramount.

Her name is on both covers.

So does Paramount save any money on these repackages?

Like a user said here, and I agree, they could have done a new 16:9 transfer and reissued Election this way.

They must be trying to save money and just update their catalog titles with new artwork.

The question is, what do they gain by doing this?

Increased visibility, which will in turn lead to higher sales, mostly to people just now getting on the Reese Witherspoon train due to her Oscar-winning performance in Walk the Line?

So why do The Gift with Cate Blanchett than? Among many others soon to come, but that is probably what's going on with this repackaged Election dvd.

I think it's that, and they may be just updating their whole catalog like they did with VHS.

Maybe now they can re-release that awesome 48 hrs VHS repackage artwork than. I love that artwork.

While I love the movie Election, the Artwork has always been so-so. A giant mouth eating Mathew Broderick? Pass. The new artwork is pretty cool. Too bad they didn't add a new transfer, otherwise I would have nabbed it.

They should have! I would have been right behind you in the checkout line as well.

That original cover was always a favourite of mine.

Very rare to get cover art that good these days.