hanshotfirst1138

Judging by the anime market, horror stories about Toei and Toho, and the way their own discs are overpriced and almost never subtitled, I'd guess that's accurate.

asianxcore

For DAM, did Toho approve the DVD but not the BD?

wahlers

I wonder who Criterion got in good with for all of their Kurosawa licenses and such. They even got the original Godzilla back.

In regards to Godzilla films, aren't I right in remembering that even the DVDs and BDs put out in Japan have the same faded, inferior prints that we end up getting for most of them?

It's almost like they're secretly ashamed of having Godzilla in their collection but don't want anyone else to have them either...

Jory

I think maybe it's easier to license Kurosawa and the first Godzilla movie because those are seen as respectable films. Toho may not be too eager to license the rest of the Godzilla flicks because they're faintly embarrassed by them. The last handful of them were released in Japan on double bills with Hamtaro movies for kids, and they never made much money, just barely enough to be slightly profitable.

manicsounds

Remember that Janus Films (The company that started The Criterion Collection) first started distributing Kurosawa movies theatrically back in the 1950's. That's a pretty long relationship.

islandclaws

Not at all. The Godzilla films are a major part of their legacy; nothing to be ashamed of there. The Japanese simply have a very long, drawn out way of doing business, which is something Westerners are not accustomed to. Toho has licensed out every single G film to one distributor or another, it's just that the process of having Every. Single. Little. Thing. approved takes forever.

milo bloom

I've mentioned before, I work for a Japanese owned company (international shipping), and the mindset is completely different. If something goes wrong, the questions and followups can be endless, lasting weeks or months, often going on longer than the consequences from the original issue itself. (There's probably still emails going around about the Megalon incident).

It's frustrating as a Godzilla fan - I want to see the other films released in better versions, and I know Toho sees how well they would sell, but I know how this kind of thing can take so long to get worked out.

islandclaws

One only needs to look at their handling of G'85 - waiting for a contract with a long-dead company to expire - to understand a little about how they do things.

manicsounds

Funny thing is considering all the fuss about unreleased Godzilla movies in the US, things are really picking up. Almost all Godzilla movies are available in America in very good editions, sometimes with 2 versions, many on Blu-ray.

The UK on the other hand, has pretty much nothing! BFI released a DVD of the first Godzilla. And that's about it. BFI also released another in the Godzilla universe, "The Mysterians", and Universal released "Godzilla Vs King Kong" on DVD dubbed, but that's 3, only 3 movies on DVD.

I emailed BFI about subsequent releases, but no answer. I asked Arrow Video but they said "ask BFI".
The rights to the movies are all over the place in the UK, with many movies not having video distributors...

wahlers

For anyone curious, the Megalon and Destroy All Monsters blu-rays are now in-stock on Amazon.

My copy of Megalon shipped yesterday.