I want to get the Dances with Wolves steelbook tomorrow, so the only way I can buy it would be through their website?

That is currently how it seems.

The video says Cinedigm is the one forcing the markup, and the guy is equating Shout Factory and Cinedigm as being one-and-the-same. It's not clear if it's Shout Factory or Cinedigm mandating the change though.

Minumum advertised pricing isn't really that unique though. One way around that for online retailers is to have a "add to cart to see price" or let the user request the price via email. That way it's not "advertised," but still sold at a cheaper price.

I like the remake of Willard for how wacky Crispin Glover is in it. That probably is a pickup for me. Also might consider The Poison Ivy Collection.

If it wasn't the label requesting it to be done but the distributor, why wouldn't it have an effect on other labels/studios?

There seems to have been a lot of issues with Shout lately. They look to try and just cut out the buffer and do it themselves at a higher price.

Their sales used to be decent, now they are terrible. There definitely is something going on with them internally.

I guess that video partially explains why all their newer releases have been so expensive. I’m not sure I really understand Shout’s goal. I mean make more money sure, but these were already mostly niche titles that were being sold at pretty high cost compared to other titles. It seems counterproductive to raise prices as it probably will limit the number of purchases from their average consumer.

i've been paying roughly $25 on Amazon. higher than other blus, yes, but not totally outrageous considering the product they churn out most times...

A few thoughts:

Some of it might be mandated by the studio's they're licensing from. the SF releases of, say, Get Shorty are supposed to be "Collectors Editions," and are competing with the studio's own bare-bones releases. The studios may be mandating a MAP so that the SF titles aren't prices near the bare-bones releases.

While this particular seller is complaining about lost sales, other small independent sellers may be more concerned about the margins on the titles, and not being able to compete with, say, Amazon on price. The seller is the video says Amazon is the same price, but has the advantage of free shipping. However, he mentions Amazon is likely also getting the titles at a lower cost, so without an MAP, Amazon would be both cheaper and free shipping.

Shout Factory is trying to keep the profit margin good for retailers (price minus cost) while keeping the price high. Another way SF could keep the price high is to increase cost to retailers, but that would cut into their margin.

SF is really more of a "boutique" distributor that's not like the mainstream studios, which release a title that gradually drops in price. For a studio that owns the titles it's selling, basically any price above the cost of manufacturing/distribution is worth selling at. However, for SF, depending on the licensing deals, they may actually lose money selling a title below a certain price, if they're even allowed to. SF isn't looking for the most sales, but the best ROI, which means appealing to a niche audience at a premium pricepoint.

Yeah Shout is running themselves into the ground with their new pricing strategy. Seems like they're hoping the hard core will pay for whatever the hell they put out at whatever price.

$35 for Creepshow is an outrageous price for a 30+ year old catalog title.

I watched some of that guys rant and I kind of feel bad for him being a small business owner and being stuck with 30+ copies of Creepshow that he can't move because of the pricing scheme he's being bullied into.

There are some titles now available and upcoming that I'm interested in, but the pricing is such a turnoff. Who wants to pay $51 for both Urban Legend 1 and 2? I'd do maybe $17-18 each tops.

But on a counterpart, we as the consumers don't know the actual physical, licensing and production costs that go into making these titles. Prices could have gone up to make these more niche and premium.

Except in many cases the normal releases are not at all bare bones, and are priced between $7-10. So when the Scream!/Shout! CE's were between $15-20 they were still priced substantially higher the standard releases.

Frankly, between the higher price, and what are often less than enticing exclusive special features, I may be done with Scream! Factory. Which will be a dramatic change of direction since I own well over 20 of their CE titles.

Not even just pricing but I’ve mentioned a few times that I feel the overall quality of the titles (not the actual releases in all cases) has gone down for me at least. I buy substantially less of their new releases now days as most just don’t interest me. I think over this year I’ve bought one title (Misery) and it was more for the fact that I found it pretty cheap at Walmart, it wasn’t a title I went out of my way to seek out.

I wonder if the guy in the video got any angry e-mails or calls from Cinedigm or Shout.

I buy all my Shout titles from Deep Discount when there's a 15% off coupon. Knocks them down to $17-19.

Most people around here seem to be mostly into the 1980s and up stuff but it appears Shout has laid out some bucks to invest in rights to some older stuff and they may in a cash squeeze. The Anchor Bay Hammer titles, Universal-International sci-fi catalog along with other A list titles from Universal.
These movies may be 60+ years old but are still highly sought after and probably cost more to license than 1980s-90s MGM/UA Cannon Films stuff.

Shout has been licensing movies lately that aren't cheap and has been creating new special features for their collector's editions.

I think Shout sees the writing on the wall for physical media as a shrinking market. Fewer and fewer outlets will be carrying Shout products going forward. They have to increase prices to stay in the game and maintain margins.

We are witnessing the transition of home video going back to the economics of the laserdisc years, when the consumer market was smaller and prices were higher. There won't be a mass market for Blu-rays and DVDs in 3 years. It will be all boutique releases sold to nuts like us at premium prices.

I agree. I think they are moving away from stuff like Death Wish 3, Missing in Action 4, etc. which have an interest to casual consumers in retail stores, and moving toward older classics with high interest among diehards with higher licensing fees.

Hopefully Shout will put their catalog, like Arrow does, on iTunes with all of the special features at comparable rates.

Speaking of Arrow, I've found their releases to be far better recently with better pricing options.

Yeah, Twelve Monkeys was $25 something, which isn’t too bad. Others, recently, too were around that price...

Arrow at least has decent sales. And buying from the UK site is even better sometimes too. Usually $11-13.

Just got Twelve Monkeys at the BN sale for $18.

Even better!

I just got a huge shipment of Arrow titles from their last sale. Under $10 each after US Conversion.

Wish I would have gone region free sooner!

I really don’t see a return to LD economics. I think that the consumer base will reject the higher prices. We’ve been buying up stuff at threshholds under $20 and under $10 for so long that I donkt think there are enough people out there willing to support $40+ (with no discount) for all of these catalog releases.

I think the Scream arm of the company has hit its ceiling. There are so few viable titles that they haven't already released. The Shout Select line has been picking up steam, but they have been releasing so much stuff that already has a decent blu ray release available for a quarter of the price. I wish they would release more titles along the lines of Wild At Heart, Streets of Fire, Suburbia, To Live and Die In L.A and less Platoon, The Jerk, Get Shorty, Legally Blonde. Either way I wish they would double down on the Select line as Scream slowly fades.

Furthermore, I used to wait for reviews when there was a title with Shout/Arrow overlap. On occasion I'd even buy both, but now I pre order Arrow over Shout everytime.

I find the Shout Select line pretty hit and miss personally. They’ll put out interesting things once in a while, but a lot of crap too. The Scream line was a lot more interesting at first. Maybe it’s just because a lot of those 80s horror films had more of an appeal to me, whereas with the Select line it’s kind of all over the place as far as genres and eras.