islandclaws

Got mine the other day. Nice touch with the magnet. I'm assuming they couldn't use the classic font on the cover because the remake chose to employ it.

Pizza

Yes. It's only 3,000 customers. Except, it's 3,000 paying customers that I would think they would want repeat business from. I keep hearing less and less folks are buying physical media so why piss off a couple of thousand customers? (Personally, I don't care if they press more as I just wanted the movie and wasn't buying it for the collectibility of it.) I can understand people getting pissy about it. I used to buy movies the first week of release because it was generally the cheapest price you could get the DVD for at least for a year or two. Now, I don't. Why? Because i got burned and learned. Same deal here. If they start going back on their word on limited runs for immediate pay-off it'll come back at them in the end as they break the trust of customers. But business is business.
Now, if this thing gets re-released in the near future for $15 or less, then I'd pissed.

Gizmo

By the time it gets re-released (if ever), the market will likely drop on this to more acceptable prices ($50ish).

PhantomStranger

Their soundtrack division will occasionally reissue a CD (many of them have initial lots of 3000) if it has quickly sold out. They don't lower the price on reissues, if that information helps anyone. Though I doubt their arrangement with Sony is anything like it is with the music labels.

LosingMyMind

Sony will have Image release this.

Guru Askew

Sony doesn't "have" Image license titles. Image licenses the available titles they want from Sony. If Image were to try licensing "Fright Night" from Sony they'd find that Sony already licensed it to Twilight Time. Not exactly rocket science.

Gizmo

Is this debate still raging on? Twilight Time has the rights. Period. How long? Well not 1 month. Likely a year or more.

Gizmo

You guys should READ THIS

Pretty much confirms that this won't get a US release for at least 3 years and that TT had to sell 1,500-2,000 just to be in the black. So they didn't really make a killing off it, but they didn't lose their shirts either.

Adam Tyner

Awesome that they're putting out The Big Heat. I'm in for that.

Superdaddy

These guys at TT know where it's at. I did not know the origin of their name, but, from the interview:

"Given how huge DVD was and how much money the studios were raking in hand over fist in the late 90s and early 2000s, right up to 2007-2008. I never thought the business would decline to the degree that they would, in a sense, prefer to outsource to a third party. But that day has come and it’s come in spades, because I don’t see the situation ever reversing.

"I think that home video, the physical media, is going to be like the soundtrack business became in the 90s, which is when the major labels got out of soundtracks, and the future of releases depended on niche labels to carry the entire weight of that small world. And I think that DVD and Blu-ray particularly is going to devolve to a third party world while the studios concentrate much more on the digital future: downloading and streaming and beaming it into your house directly. Physical media is coming to an end, which is why we called the label Twilight Time. I mean that was the joke: it’s Twilight Time. The sun is setting on the world of physical media. This is what it’s about. This is the last go-round--this is the end of home video as we have known it up to now."

LosingMyMind

So it's pretty much an inevitability that this will have a foreign region free release.

Gizmo

Gees. Where does it say that?

Are we to assume every film ever released will no doubt get a foreign release? He just simply stated TT does not own the rights to it anywhere but in the US. If Sony wants to license it out, they can. How often does Sony license out titles not available in the US to other distributors?

Shit, some of you guys think this is Lawrence of Arabia. It's a 26 year old catalog film that sold poorly on DVD and took 5 weeks to sell 3,000 copies on Blu-ray here in the US. It's NOT a big seller. The remake flopped, which will make this even a harder sale.

If anyone wanted this film, they should have ponied up the $30 or $35.

ThePhantomGoat

While it's not a guarantee, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Fright Night got a foreign blu release. I mean, quite frankly, its seems like you're just thrusting this negative attitude about it for no particular reason.

Trying to get people to scared into paying even more for your copies on ebay? lol

Guru Askew

Region coding exists to protect people like Twilight Time who may own the rights in one territory and not another. Even if Sony releases have historically been region-free (and I don't know if they have) you can rest assured that Twilight Time would require region coding for foreign releases as one of the terms of their licensing contract.

Pizza

Nice read. Thanks for sharing. I'm not too excited at some of the future releases. Bell, Book and Candle and Bite the Bullet are maybes.

Gizmo

Again, if Sony didn't see fit to release this in America, where it would receive a blunt of it's sales, why would they (or another studio) risk releasing it in other territories? It's not a big release. It's a catalog title that sold poorly on DVD. The remake bombed. It just seems silly to get crazy about how this will be available overseas when most people won't even buy it if it's released. They didn't spend $30 now, why would they spend (potentially more) to import it?

Nahh, I already made my money back on them and still have more left. The price will only go up in the future.

Adam Tyner

Eh, sometimes foreign release arms are pretty much separate companies with their own distinct bottom lines anyway. As for why Sony UK/Europe or some other licensee would put out a BD of Fright Night, the answer is...well, the same reason they'd put out any catalog title. You do realize that there are tons of other companies that put out titles in markets smaller than the US, right?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing that it'll definitely come out in another market. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. If it does, maybe it'll be region-free and maybe it won't. Pretty much everyone here was aware of the release, and if the price scared you off, I don't blame you, but at the end of the day, no one owes you anything. You roll the die and you take your chances. Maybe you can get a cheap, region-free release at some point down the road, or maybe you'll be S.O.L.

Still, that "only the U.S. really matters" mindset is inexplicable, and you know far too much about international Blu-ray release slates to make a statement that poorly informed. Foreign shops tend to be a lot more adventurous, after all.

ThePhantomGoat

Well said, Adam.



And Gizmo, if it does come out in another region, why would you assume its going to be more than $30?

As far as questioning if anyone would even care to import it. well, I would for one. I love Fright Night, but given the the holidays, I just didn't have the money to spend on it.

anomynous

I don't get the controversy.

They said it would be limited, and it was.

Michael Allred

You keep saying it "sold poorly on DVD." Do you have solid statistical data to back that up because that DVD has been in-print since it first came out.

gmanca

Well since the guy running Twilight Time pointed to the soundtrack market, that model does employ bringing back OOP titles for new runs but unlike blu-ray, the CD medium has allowed for much time between re-releases. I could definitely see them renegotiating for another run and just like those soundtrack companies, they'll shrug at the complaints.

RocShemp

I figure with the remake (though it underperformed) and how quickly this limited release sold out, Sony might be willing to squeeze some blood out of this stone at a later date.

By the way, what are "OD sales"?

Gizmo

Because a typical import costs about $30 after shipping and everything is said and done. If it's Arrow, and a new release, it will be around $30 (I've important several of those).

Gizmo

They (Sony) look at sales of Fright Night on DVD. It's easy to see 'it sold x amount of copies this year, x this..." and determine if the title is worth releasing on Blu-ray. Clearly if the DVD sold well enough, it would have been a Sony release (even if the remake bombed).

Darth Maher

^ You forgot to add that you've made millions selling your excess stock of Fright Night Blu-ray Discs...