riotinmyskull

goddamnit i was hoping criterion would get their hands on LENNY

TheDuke

Most definitely in for Fright Night and Zardoz!

zyzzle

Hooray for ZARDOZ! One of the quirkiest and coolest films I've had the pleasure of watching. And some vintage Connelly in a crazy role!

hdnmickey

Connelly or Connery?

Josh-da-man

If someone is buying Zardoz to see a scantily clad Jennifer Connelly they are in for a rude awakening.

zyzzle

Slips of the tongue -- Freudian ones at that -- get you every time...

Good ol' Sean back in '73 wearing a crazy costume and spouting some wonderfully purple dialogue in ZARDOZ still almost wins over a scantly clad Jennifer Connelly... But, I digress.

JoeySeven

FROM SAE's News Feed:

Special offer from TWILIGHT TIME - A limited signed edition of CHE! - signed by composer Lalo Schifrin - available to those customers who spend $100, before shipping, on other TWILIGHT TIME product. You must add the signed edition to your cart and check out successfully with an order confirmation number to qualify. There will be a page just like the other titles to be added to your cart located on the homepage within the TWILIGHT TIME new releases box. This is a first come first serve offer. There are no new pre-orders at this time. This will go live today Wednesday, November 12th 4 P.M. Eastern.(Today)

This is A free signed copy of CHE blu-ray.You need to buy either four $30 tittles or
three $35 tittles.Kind of nice if you were planing on buying some TT releases,brings
the cost down to around $25.50 A movie.Still kind of high,but better then $30+.

Next week La Bamba signed (by Lou Diamond Phillips) will be available with the December pre-orders.

Spiderbite

Surprised these haven't been posted yet. They announced them a few days ago. I am really pumped for The Bounty. What sucks is I actually bought a dvd copy just a couple of months ago but I had given up on it coming to BD.

March/April:

THE BOUNTY (1984) BLU-RAY - March 10th
SOLOMON AND SHEBA (1959) BLU-RAY - March 10th
THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1964) BLU-RAY - March 10th
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1959) BLU-RAY - March 10th (New 4k Restoration)
U TURN (1997) BLU-RAY - March 10th
THE STORY OF ADELE H (1975) BLU-RAY - April 14th
THE FANTASTICKS (1995) BLU-RAY - April 14th
APRIL LOVE (1957) BLU-RAY - April 14th
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993) BLU-RAY - April 14th
RICHARD III (1995) BLU-RAY - April 14th

Darth Maher

slop101

I am all over this one!

Decker

I guess I've been completely ignorant about these releases. Can someone school me on these releases? Are all these Twilight Time releases limited to 3,000 copies? Why is that? Some of these are little known cult films, but some seem to be quite popular titles and you know they could sell more copies. I don't really understand the business model with the exception of the undeniable fact that the extreme scarcity makes it much more likely that people would bite the bullet and pay the full $29.99 MSRP for a catalog title.

Are they only sold on that SAE website? I know the Blu Ray reviews here link to Amazon but the discs are never in stock there I went ahead and ordered Yentl (maybe the best film ever made about traditional Judaism) and Breaking Away (the second best film about Indiana). I'd imagine that just between Jewish and Hoosier Blu Ray collectors these would be gone pretty soon, so I went ahead and paid those hefty prices here.

Undeadcow

Supposedly Sony licenses these films to Twilight Time with the agreement that only 3000 (or in some cases 5000) will be pressed.

Twilight Time releases are sold on the SAE website primarily but they are also available from TCM Store and sometimes Amazon.com provided the release dosen't sell out quickly. Regardless it's rare the price drops below $29.99.

Paul_SD

The 3000 figure was arrived at based on their previous experience with limited editions of movie soundtracks. That seemed to be the 'sweet spot'.
The reason they are limited in the first place is to motivate people to actually buy them, instead of endlessly putting them off waiting for a price drop. There's just more urgency when something is limited.
And based on the ratio of sell outs to titles that have hundreds of copies left years after their release, 3000 is generally a very optimistic number on their part.

Also something you may not be aware of- periodically (once every month or so) they will have a promo offering 100 copies of a title autographed by someone associated with the film. The autographed copy is a freebie if you spend (now) $149.75 on any of their other titles. That comes out to basically 5 titles. It can be a nice deal if there are 5 other titles you are interested in. That's one reason I tend to not order one or two titles at a time, but wait to place an order with three or more. The other reason is the shipping costs average out lower and you are more likely to get them shipped in a box rather than just a bubble wrap mailer.

Adam Tyner

In at least one interview with Nick Redman, he doesn't argue the point about the limit being self-imposed. I'm not sure if 3,000 is a contractual obligation that Twilight Time chose, if they can release as many as they want but are limiting to 3,000 as part of their business model, or if the answer varies by studio. (It could be that Twilight Time decided on 3,000 but that it's still worked into one or more of the licensing deals.) They've said in the past that 3,000 was the magic number that worked for their limited edition soundtrack releases.

Resellers -- and sometimes Screen Archives themselves -- list them on Amazon. It's hit or miss. I actually have gotten a couple from Amazon via Screen Archives.

Selling more copies doesn't necessarily mean they'd make any more money, though. Their model isn't nearly as consumer-friendly as, say, Olive Films, who quasi-carpet-bomb at fairly reasonable prices, but even if it doesn't play as nicely for me, it makes a lot of sense.

There are a few things built into Twilight Time's model:

1) By selling everything directly-ish, that reduces the number of middlemen they have to pay. They keep a whole bunch of that $29.95 pie.

2) Like you said, scarcity is part of their marketing and a good way to control costs. It's mostly only their genre releases that people go nuts over, but those selling out so quickly ultimately helps move less desirable titles since those interested may be inspired to buy early. The worst thing for movies like this is people thinking "oh, I'll get that later" or "I'll wait for a price drop" since they'll likely wind up losing interest altogether.

3) In general, their marketing costs are near zero. They don't have to work on in-store promotions, pay for placement, negotiate with B&M or online retailers, advertise at all, etc. They don't have to do anything more than email press releases or send out newsletters to their subscribers.

4) Much like Scream Factory, they've established themselves as a brand to the people who pay attention to this sort of thing.

5) They don't really produce any new extras (aside from liner notes and relatively cheap commentaries), which is more money in their pocket.

6) Their costs are controlled enough to know exactly where they need to land to make a profit. The studios basically provide everything.

7) Studios like it because they basically have to do nothing, and the payment structure is more appealing than what companies like Echo Bridge do.

8) Anymore, moving 3,000 copies is pretty terrific for a catalog title. Catalog sales are basically dead. Being a marquee title doesn't necessarily mean anything either. As Good As It Gets raked in right at $150 million at the U.S. box office (~$221 million, adjusted for inflation), but in more than two and a half years, Twilight Time still hasn't sold its 3,000 copies yet. (They're getting there -- around 150 copies left -- but still...)

rocket1312

One thing I'll add is that Twilight Time pays all of the costs for licensing and royalties up front. In other words, for the studios, licensing these titles to Twilight Time (vs. another studio) is cash in hand. There's no risk on the part of the studio if a title doesn't sell. The financial burden is squarely on Twilight Time. All the studios do is supply the film and collect the money.

Decker

Thanks for all the insightful, informative responses. If not for the featured Blu Ray reviews here I doubt I'd ever know about these releases.

One more question : Are these new HD transfers? In other words if there's a movie they release that I'm only mildly interested in and if it doesn't have many/any extras (like The Fortune for example), is the experience of owning an HD digital copy on Amazon Instant Video pretty much comparable to the Twilight Time Blu Ray (for non-collectors)?

Adam Tyner

It's whatever the studio forks over, which sometimes is brand-new and sometimes creakingly ancient. Their BDs of Titus and Sexy Beast -- both with transfers dating back to 2000 (no exaggeration) -- are embarrassing instances of the latter.

Sony-sourced titles generally look fantastic, while their Fox titles are all over the place. There's certainly more good than bad, though.

Decker

So it's safe to assume they look identical to the Video On Demand versions?

Adam Tyner

That should generally be the case, but some movies do have multiple HD transfers. Breakfast at Tiffany's on Netflix in HD looks completely different from Paramount's BD. The Egyptian was on its third HD master when Twilight Time licensed it, and I'm not sure any of them had ever seen the light of day before that! I seem to remember that the BD of the Night of the Living Dead remake had different color timing than what one of the HD streaming services offered. Can't remember if it was a different transfer altogether.

rw2516

Don't know if it's on every title, but because of their history with the collector's market of soundtrack cds, TT gives you an isolated score track. It's like getting the BD and the soundtrack cd both.

nitin77

All the Sony titles are form 4k remasters, the ones from other studios are hit and miss as AT points out.

Brian T

Just looking at the special features on the new listing for TO SIR WITH LOVE. Quite a selection. I don't recall much in the way of supplements on previous DVD editions (maybe overseas?), so are these all (or mostly) new?

- - - - - -

Special Features: Isolated Score Track / Audio Commentary with Actress Judy Geeson, and Film Historians Nick Redman and Julie Kirgo / Audio Commentary with Author E.R. Braithwaite and Author/Teacher Salome Thomas El / E.R. Braithwaite: In His Own Words / Lulu and the B-Side / Miniskirts, Blue Jeans and Pop Music / To Sidney with Love / Principal El: He Chose to Stay / Original Theatrical Trailer

- - - - - -

Thoughts?

AMERICAN

..is that one where sean connery ran around in a diaper?

Adam Tyner

Zardoz is, yes.

hanshotfirst1138

Wonder if they'll do Ferarra's Body Snatchers? Who does own that? MGM?