Alan Smithee

Wonder if it'll have the original music restored? I bought the Anchor Bay DVD before knowing about that.

DJariya

dex14

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dex14

Adam Tyner

That is incredibly disappointing.

Why So Blu?

Yep, the costs are prohibitive.

rocket1312

Maybe it's for the best. I don't think I could stomach another kino go-round with theses movies. Kino has their place, and I own many of their releases, but they're just not the right people to be tackling these. It was always going to end in disappointment one way or another.

Adam Tyner

Not inherently. I mean:

I think it’s less “4K is too expensive” and more “this specific project will cost more than we’ll get out of it”. At least Hannibal had a regular Blu-ray release to help amortize the costs. That wouldn’t be the case here.

Adam Tyner

At the same time, they were pretty much our only hope for a domestic 4K release. MGM doesn't really do home video anymore. The deepest-pocketed labels on these shores -- Criterion, Shout!, and Arrow -- have zero interest in Ultra HD Blu-ray. And for the labels that are experimenting with 4K, it's too big a property and too daunting a project to really imagine them taking on, and it's not in most of their wheelhouses besides. (Y'know, Well Go and Discotek aren't really in the Eurowestern business.) So I guess the best we could hope for is an overseas release, but I don't know how realistic that is either. It's just a shame all around.

PhantomStranger

That's my belief as well. They've openly complained about poor sales for the Hannibal UHD. Kino just doesn't expect the trilogy to sell enough to pay off mastering and grading all three films in 4K.

Can't really blame them as retail outlets carrying media shrink. The Dollars Trilogy is a big seasonal seller around the holidays and would need an extensive retail campaign to get every sale possible.

Adam Tyner

Well, they said that sales were good but not great. Rated it 3 out of 5. Not what they were hoping for, I’m sure, but not poor, exactly.

There’s been some Internet telephone game type of situation where people would take that quote, misconstrue it a bit, then someone would cite that and exaggerate it further, and then by the end, you’d have podcasts talking about how catastrophic the sales were, even though that doesn’t reflect what Kino actually said.

Paul_SD

Kino announced a new deal with Universal for 200+ titles, including more TV movies, silents, and at least one, short lived TV series.

Other than Kolchak (which I'm hoping it turns out to be) what are some other one or two season Universal shows you can see them putting out?

Brian T

B.J. and the Bear and The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo. Finally!

Toddarino

Kino has become one of my favorite labels. I know they’re bare bones, I’ve discovered so many hidden gems that no studio would release. Also unlike twilight time they don’t slap a number on them and charge an arm and a leg. Would I have paid $40 for Vigilante Force? Nope. Will I pay $15 and watch it twice in a week? Fuck yes.

PhantomStranger

Kino's pricing definitely shows they understand the market. Many of the movies they sell aren't great but have some value to certain movie watchers. Pricing them regularly under $20 is far easier to swallow than paying $25 and up.

Paul_SD

Agreed on Kino's pricing- especially if you take advantage of their sales. If I averaged all the money I've spent on just Kino titles the last five years, I doubt I paid more than $12 each. Probably closer to $10.

They definitively shot down Kolchak again. They don't know if it's with another studio or if Universal wants to release it themselves.

The KLI's comments on the state of the industry were disappointing, but completely not unexpected. Sales in general have been decreasing every year. That makes it a mini miracle we are getting so many deep cuts released in as watchable a presentation as we are. This new deal will yield a couple dozen never-before-on-home-video titles as well. That's always exciting for anyone who considers themselves a film buff.
More disappointing is their view of comedies and dramas, both of which have been among their worst selling genres. Film noirs were also, surprisingly, among the weaker sellers. Those three genres cut out a ton of great films they won't even be considering releasing.

PhantomStranger

I kind of get it with comedies - most older comedies have very little value to anyone that didn't grow up with them. Comedies age poorer than just about any other genre unless they are stone-cold classics.

Norm de Plume

TV movies? Great news. I hope they're from the 1970s Golden Age. A number of goodies from that era of which I'd love to have official releases.

Adam Tyner

They’ve dropped a few hints about an upcoming Ultra HD release.

• Of the 3 UHD titles currently in the works. It’s the only one from Universal
• Universal has released it on Blu-ray
• It’s not Red Dragon

Looking at a list of Universal titles from that decade, excluding titles we know for sure have been licensed to other labels, and thinking about what’d probably make the most sense for a UHD release, I keep coming back to Pitch Black. Ballyhoo has said that they’re working on extras for an upcoming Pitch Black release, which would seem to point to a label like Scream Factory or Arrow instead, but...I dunno, I don’t have a better guess right now.

DJariya

Narrow Margin coming to BD. A really underrated 1990s thriller.

DJariya

More details on Narrow Margin and artwork:

I don't buy a lot of Kino Lorber product, but I might have to get this one. This is a really underrated early 1990s thriller. I have an old Lionsgate DVD from about 10 years ago that's out of print.

Twitter

Spiderbite

Freaking finally!!!!

Love this movie score. The DVD transfer was sucky so I really hope this looks good!

OldBoy

First time watching Diggstown since I got it way back. Love this one. Why did KL use original title of Midnight Sting on Blu-ray? I love it’s called Diggstown!

OldBoy

Peter Hyams. Great underrated 80’s-90’s Director. From this and the wonderfully good Timecop. JVC in prime. A little Mia Sara. Running Scared which I just watched other day. So many good ones that I need to get to or see again. Capricorn One, 2010, Outlander, Star Chamber. So many good ones with good stars...

OldBoy

gotta say, I had forgotten I bought this on Vudu. Put it on to compare. Too bad I didn’t watch. It blows the bluray out of water in visual dept. The Blu-ray is like washed out. Vudu HDX much cleaner, better skin tone. Blu-ray, blah. But, even Vudu has that original title. Not even title of book which this is based on. I don’t get it. Should have stuck with streaming. Oh well.