Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Violent Saturday is also a must although I'm getting the more loaded and cheaper MoC edition.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

I'm still waiting for the '88 version of the Blob.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

From their Facebook page:

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

I can't praise Hard Times enough. Such a manly film with Charles Bronson. Also it's Walter Hill's debut too.

The Driver isn't as good but it's a lot of style with some cool chases. It had to be an influence on Refn's Drive.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

The only Blu-Ray I don't have from that list is Alfredo Garcia (which is odd for me; I love Peckinpah). I have since rectified that. :)

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Has Twilight Time ever stated why they only make limited, expensive pressings of things? I just bought Wild at Heart but I kind of hated myself for doing it.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Yes, many times and it's discussed just as many in this very thread I'm sure.

I won't spend $30 on Used Cars on Blu-ray but I would $5-$10. I have no option of doing that so I spent zero and have nice 1080p version of it anyway.

Probably because the physical media market is more or less dead anyway and the kind of niche titles they out out have very little marketability.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Wild at Heart and Sleepless in Seattle are hardly niche... Shout Factory and Criterion seem to be doing well enough to not have to do limited edition runs.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Exactly. Maybe that's their business model, but there are plenty of far more obscure/niche catalog releases from big and small companies that aren't limited and expensive. And when they are expensive, like in Criterion's case, you can easily find them discounted up to 50% off - try finding a TT blu-ray discounted for even 20%. You can't!

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Do we really need to go over this again?

Twilight Time is only licensed to sell 3,000 copies of each title. They cannot sell more than that. Their discs are only sold through one distributor, Screen Archives, and do not benefit from economies of scale as a larger distributor might. They've set pricing that they feel they can make a profit with.

The market for catalog titles on Blu-ray is in the toilet right now. Twilight Time is experimenting with the "limited edition collectible" model and it appears to be working for them. If you don't feel that their discs are worth the prices asked, don't buy them.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Except that's really dumb so you better believe I'm going to complain about it. They could easily print on demand runs or something similar. Limited edition movie releases are lame as hell and do nothing except hurt customers.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

It's a really effective way of controlling costs and predicting sales/revenue on their end. It also gives them a marketing hook and adds a sense of urgency that might not be there otherwise. When things sell out for current titles, it makes Twilight Time's customers more likely to bite sooner for future titles, which also works out in TT's favor. Having a limited number sold through one supplier means they don't have as many hands in their pie. They might sell more copies of certain titles if they were available at Best Buy and the like (which, in practice, could range from difficult to impossible), but they're coming out on top selling fewer at a higher price with less effort/overhead.

The studios like the limited release model because they know exactly how much money they're going to get and when, and they can also issue or re-license the same title once the period of exclusivity has ended.

It's obviously not the most consumer-friendly thing in the world. It makes me less likely to buy something I have more of a casual interest in. (I'd buy Used Cars in a heartbeat if it weren't $35 shipped. The Harryhausens and stuff like that...yeah, I'll pull out my credit card.) I get it, though, and I think there's a good chance of seeing more of this from other labels in the future. I'm surprised it's not more prevalent already. I imagine Synapse's limited edition Blu-ray releases of Document of the Dead and the two Demons steelbooks are inspired by Twilight Time's success there.

Bear in mind that even though other labels don't have "limited to 3,000" on the cover somewhere, they're not necessarily moving significantly more than 3,000 copies. I know there's a difference between a studio catalog title and what Scorpion Releasing specializes in, but they posted this on Facebook the other day:

I'm surprised there haven't been more subscription-type services for the niche labels. I subscribed to the Alamo Drafthouse's Blu-ray line for a little while, but I thought the release slate was too hit or miss. If there were something like that for Synapse, Code Red, Scorpion, etc....I'd bite.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

You're only looking at this from your own perspective. "I want all the movies and I want them all cheap!" You're not looking at this from the perspective of a small business trying to stay afloat in a difficult market.

You obviously have no concept of how poorly catalog Blu-ray releases sell. Even major studio titles distributed to every Walmart and Best Buy in the country are lucky to sell 1,000 copies. A run of 3,000 is more than enough for most releases. Only a handful of Twilight Time's discs have sold out at those numbers.

Print on demand runs are not realistic for a label like Twilight Time. They don't press their own discs. They have to contract that out to a manufacturing facility which will impose minimum order limits. What's in it for a manufacturing plant to press a couple hundred discs once in a blue moon? There's no profit in that for anyone.

Again, if you feel that Twilight Time's discs aren't worth the asking prices, don't buy them. I own a handful of Twilight Time discs that I felt were worth the money, but I've passed over a bunch more that I only had moderate interest in. I might buy something like Used Cars for $10-15 dollars, but $30 is more than I feel that title is worth. Ultimately, I decided that I just don't need to own the movie. It's not that important to me. I'll spend that money elsewhere. If I were a bigger fan of Used Cars, I'd shell out the $30.

I'm sorry that you feel this is "lame as hell," but sometimes in life you have to accept that you have no special entitlement to get everything you want exactly how you want it.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Again, it's not the print run that's the problem. And the MSRP isn't a problem in and of itself. The problem is that these never get discounted like every single other release does.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

I don't care that they are expensive, that's fine. If I want something badly enough I will set aside the money to get it. I just hate limited edition releases of movies in general. At least with limited releases of things like music (I just bought a bunch of stuff for RSD, for example) I can always easily download MP3s if I miss out. And as I mentioned previously, after seeing the success of companies like Criterion and Shout which put out far more niche titles, I really don't buy the whole "limited runs is the only financially viable way" excuse.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Limited edition is probably the future of home video.

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Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

I have three Twilight Time titles right now. Body Double, Used Cars and Wild at Heart. Don't regret a single purchase. It's like if I buy a Criterion or go to another country to import a title (I did regret paying $30 to import Solomon Kane when it got released many months later in the US w/special features for $10 but that's another story), sure it costs more but the collector in me values what I'm willing to pay and buys it accordingly.

If you don't like the price, don't buy it. I'm a cheap bastard on so many of my purchases....but some things I will spend a tiny bit of money for like Twilight Time stuff.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

They had a sale a month ago on a bunch of titles.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

It'll probably be the new normal next year. Studios are closing up shop on catalog it seems.

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I don't think it's so much that the title is niche as it is that the format is. The Used Cars and Wild at Heart releases are, for most people, identical to their cheap, readily available DVD version from a movie/extras perspective. So for the increased audio/visual quality (and maybe an isolated score extra) alone, that's a niche market compared to the general public.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

I remember a report that came out claiming only 10% of VHS owners ever bought a tape or recorded something. 90% of machines sold were used exclusively to watch rented tapes from the video store.
My Sony BD player is acting up. All the forum talk at the supportsite is about streaming problems. Reading customer reviews of players, I'm seeing mostly comments about how well, or how crappy the Wi-Fi and streaming is. I'm getting the impression that 90% of Blu-ray players are being bought solely for streaming devices. The attitude being, "It plays those Blu-ray discs things too, if your into that kind of thing".

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

Limited Edition releases are going to continue to happen on Blu-ray and it's going to be a larger segment of the way films are released on Blu-ray going forward. There simply isn't enough demand from a large segment of the buying public to warrant pressing 5,000 or 10,000 discs and then have them sitting around unsold in warehouses or where the only way they can get a sale is to lower the price to a nonfluctuating $5 or so price point. Studios are figuring out that it might make more economic sense to sell 3,000 or so copies for higher prices instead of attempting to sell larger quantities at $10-15 tops and have a high quantity of leftover, unsold stock.

I don't like the fact that these Limited Edition releases are expensive. However, I do appreciate that a company like Twilight Time was even formed so that we can actually get more classic films on Blu-ray that otherwise would not be released.

While Blu-ray is most certainly mainstream now, there are a lot of people who would be completely content with having certain films only on DVD - and who don't care enough about the upgrade in presentation to buy them on Blu-ray at all. This doesn't help sales at a mass production level.

Re: The Official Twilight Time Blu-ray Thread
 

That's why for the past few years the boxes of BD players heavily advertise all the streaming features while the Blu-ray and DVD playback get a nod. Amazon didn't come out with a Fire BD Player for a reason.