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Fingers crossed for Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

I think he indicated that titles that were released on DVD are currently under Warner distribution and unavailable to licence.

I thought it was for films that Warners kept in print, not all former Paramount DVDs. Like, Oliver's Story was kept a 5.97 DVD and Kids in the Hall Brain Candy was released via the Archives, so they're not eligible, but Teacher's Pet, which remained OOP, would be?

Ashirg wrote:I think he indicated that titles that were released on DVD are currently under Warner distribution and unavailable to licence.

Looks to be the case. So these Paramount/Republic titles should essentially be titles that have never seen even a DVD release before. (Though MisterLime did state a couple Republic titles were released by Lionsgate previously).

He's now made it explicitly clear that no titles formerly released on DVD by Paramount, regardless of whether WB put them out as well, are part of the deal

Don't Give Up the Ship is the next Paramount title from the deal.

That's nice. I don't know how good they are but I'm more than willing to check out minor Lewis flicks like this. Hopefully it's at least on a par with Taurog's decently watchable Martin and Lewis flicks like The Caddy and Living It Up. Visit to a Small Planet in particular intrigues the hell out of me so hopefully that follows soon after.

Looking for Mr Goodbar would be much appreciated.

Cronenfly wrote:Looking for Mr Goodbar would be much appreciated.

Given the legal issues surrounding that film's soundtrack, I doubt it's gonna happen.

He's shot down it and Phobia for "legal reasons." And they apparently didn't even bother to go after Isabel. I'm not sure there's a treasure trove of unreleased Paramount titles given that Universal controls most of the good stuff from their studio era days

A couple silent films are on tap, but not The Wedding March (presumably still with Criterion). Also some vintage 50s 3D titles are also on tap, though Money from Home has been ruled out. Those Redheads from Seattle and The Maze are probably the most likely titles.

Joseph Kane's Dakota on the way.

Interesting. I wonder why Olive never got around to Dakota when they were doing all the John Wayne films from the Republic library. Was there just not a valid HD master at that time?

Maybe Paramount didn't have HD transfer ready when the titles were being licensed to Olive.

Strongly believed to be coming from Criterion, the Wanderers will be coming from Kino Lorber instead

Is this their first license from Warners, or is the film no longer with them?

It seems like it could be with MGM as Orion has at least partial rights. WB was merely the distributor.

If it's not with WB it would be a very unusual case—only four early Orion titles (i.e., before they bought Filmways and began distributing themselves) are with anyone except WB, and in three of those cases there are fairly evident reasons (Life of Brian was a pickup, not a co-production, and two of the others are Zoetrope titles). The odd one out is A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, which MGM has for some reason. It's not entirely unbelievable that WB would now be licensing to Kino—it's not that long ago it was nearly unthinkable that they would license to Criterion—but the pessimist in me thinks something else is up here.

I'm pretty sure the Orion library is with MGM. MGM has distributed a lot of Orion materials for sure including all of the Woody Allen films (e.g. Shadows and Fog) and Robocop.

The Orion titles with MGM are (excepting A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy) films Orion distributed themselves. Before late 1982, Orion released through Warner Bros. The Orion brass was unhappy with that deal and acquired Filmways (which already had its own distribution network) so they wouldn't have to rely on WB anymore. But Orion was apparently still contractually bound to WB, and as part of the severance deal, WB got the rights to the films they had distributed for Orion, with the exceptions mentioned above (though I assume WB continued to distribute those films until they reverted to their rights holders). In fact, I believe the deal actually entailed WB legally acquiring the company that had been Orion to that point, after which Filmways became the "new" Orion. My guess is that Orion got A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy excluded from the severance deal because they had a multi-film contract with Allen and didn't want their first collaboration immediately going to WB.

Did not know that. Weird.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:It's not entirely unbelievable that WB would now be licensing to Kino—it's not that long ago it was nearly unthinkable that they would license to Criterion—but the pessimist in me thinks something else is up here.

Agreed. I'd think Warner would probably be one of the last of the studios to license to Kino. We'd likely see some Sony or Universal titles in the Studio Classics line first.

knives wrote:Did not know that. Weird.

Neither did I. I always wondered why Heart Beat (1980) & Promises in the Dark (1979) are with Warners but not later Orion films. Now I know.

wonder if The Wanderers will be the longer cut that Philip Kaufman deposited in the George Eastman House.

MisterLime on the licensing for The Wanderers:

"The deal is not with WB. And MGM owns Orion, so a direct deal with Orion would not be possible. The deal is an independent one."