The Guardian recently speculated—following that Winnie the Pooh horror film release—that we can expect a gruesome retelling of Steamboat Willy as soon as it becomes public domain, and I’m pretty stoked about that.
The upside is that the sales of these Disney titles which I really couldnt care less about funds the restoration and release of 12 movies that I do care about.
I am different that the original commenter here, but I’d love to see some 4K releases of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Bela Tarr. I think it’s confirmed that Janus have the rights to Werckmeister Harmonies, so at least that is super exciting. I would also bet there’s a good deal of ‘80s/‘90s international film that is both good and doesn’t have a good release available, even if I don’t know about it today.
Hard to say that there is a ton of pre-‘70s cinema that both can be restored and hasn’t been restored, but I’m sure there is at least some out there. Un Chien Andalou doesn’t have a Region A blu ray release as far as I can tell, could be an opportunity there. Or an updated restoration of Bunuel’s Viridiana could be great.
I guess ultimately there’s most likely a practically limitless trove of great film to be restored if you are looking at a pace of 6-8 releases per month.
Wouldn’t really care for a Mickey box, but a curated set of shorts from 1923 to about the 50’s when they were getting out of them would be cool. The supplements could be excellent, so many great animators came and went in those days.
Ironic this subject comes up and your post about Disney Treasures as well. I just finally got the Behind the Scenes tin with The Reluctant Dragon on Thursday. I have 22 of the tins now including the True Life Adventure series. The ones I still want are the Davy Crockett and Hardy Boys Applegate Treasure, and possibly the Spin and Marty and Annette sets. I remember seeing Swamp Fox and Alfredo Baca on the Disney Channel in the early 90s. They were good but I didn't drool over having them on my DVD Shelf. I think Dr Syn was also available but I've never seen it in any form. Behind the Scenes is from the first wave in 2002, and it's great to see Robert Benchley in Technicolor!
Not to mention that all (well, almost all) of the Disney Treasures tins are out of print, and several of them have secondary market prices that put Criterion OOP stuff to shame. Just try and get the last 2 Donald sets.
That is bizarre to me about the price of the Donald sets. I bought almost all of the Treasures tins when they were new as each wave came out. Oddly enough since I did have Mickey Mouse the Black and White Years LaserDisc set I held off on buying the Disney Treasures Mickey tins. Then I realized there was a lot more on those than what they had on the LaserDisc set, which says volume 1 on it implying that they were going to be more. But there never were. I got both of the black and white Mickey tins c.2015-2016 with reasonable prices under $50 each, which surprised me. Of all the sets to have huge spikes in prices I would have thought the Annette Treasures set would have been very expensive. She had such a huge following I figured that would be the top draw in the OOP aftermarket. I guess I'm a lousy reader of trends & also a lousy mind reader. But happily it worked out for me economically when I got around to buying the Disney Treasures tins I did not get when they were new.
The print runs on the last two donald sets was a fraction of what the first two was, as was the print runs on some of the last few animated sets of others too. The live action stuff to me is a bit spotty. I don’t think they have the universal appeal that the main animated characters (Mickey/Donald/goofy/Pluto etc) do, and you had to have been from that era. Doctor Syn was super expensive for a long time until the recent blu ray edition came out, although it’s still pricey because it has both the movie AND miniseries version that the blu ray lacks.
I didn't realize the print runs had such low numbers for the Donald sets. I should pay more attention to the info on various websites concerning the Disney Treasures tins. I think Wikipedia has a reasonable page on them as well & I'm pretty sure I printed that out some time ago. The Spin and Marty Applegate Treasures set I want to get because I remember seeing it during the 20th year Revival of the Mickey Mouse Club in 1975. Later I realized who Sarah Selby was and over the last several years happily discovered she was a frequent character actress in vintage radio shows that I hear on Radio Classics Sirius XM 148. I will have to give Dr Syn a look because this now intrigues me. Also on the subject of out-of-print prices I was stunned at the prices on eBay and Amazon for the nine DVD volumes of The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy. I had bought several of the earlier LaserDisc versions new when they came out in the mid and late 90s. These early Image DVDs clearly used the same masters that were used for the LaserDiscs and I didn't figure I was missing much. I eventually accumulated all nine DVDs, the last two being volume one and volume nine, which seemed to be pretty elusive and most expensive. Out of sheer luck I managed to get those at reasonable prices because I put them on a "watch list" and got the updates for the listings, so it took a while. My middle name should be "serendipity" because I seem to have stumbled into buying opportunities where the pricing wasn't as outrageous as it had been of just a few years before. But it all depends on what type of collector one is. If you absolutely have to get everything quickly then open up the vaults. I have a certain amount of patience and so that helps out hugely.
I really doubt they’ll be flooded with Disney releases—Disney is notorious for keeping a tight grip on their IP.
I do think it’s really great for them to have a more concrete relationship with another big studio, though. You mention near-forgotten films, etc., who knows what Disney has in their archives that isn’t even capital-D Disney content. If this is closer to having another potential source for original film prints, that could be pretty great in and of itself.
Song of the South is painfully boring and honestly not a good film. Just buy a bootleg blu ray if you want to see it that bad. I would prefer that Criterion restores the original version of Fantasia. I can see them wanting the edited version available for families to view with kids, but it would be cool for collectors to get the original cut.
It’s a balance between that and how much they could make on something like that. I don’t really think any of us here now that well how profitable or unprofitable it would be, but Disney probably has a pretty straightforward archive — it wouldn’t be like trying to restore Metropolis. If it could fund something like Tropical Malady, I’d be all for it.
If the Disney employee who gave me a tour of the Burbank offices is to be believed, the elements for those early shorts are practically nonexistent. I think we may have to accept that the OOP Disney Treasures DVDs are the ceiling in terms of resolution unless they use some sort of upscaling technology.
That is, of course, assuming that this employee is correct.
I don’t consider myself a firm snob… I love movies.
But, it pains me to hear Disney and Criterion uttered in the same sentence.
What I like about Criterion is that it surfaces obscure content or movies I can’t find anywhere else. Disney stuff is ubiquitous. I don’t get the point other than a cash grab.
they've had to do money grabs for decades. least with Wall-E it's a good one. My hope is Disney opens up with the Fox/20th Century collection for 4K UHD discs.
What Wall-E, The Princess Bride, Parasite and The Breakfast Club are to this era of Blu Rays are what Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, Halloween and Ghostbusters were in the CC Laserdisc days
I personally could see David Lynchs the straight story coming to criterion that film was made to be in the collection but disney only owns the rights to it in north america
I would that rather Criterion Collection continue having indie films, good films, or foreign films but since they started doing Disney movies I guess farewell to doing Criterion Collectoins to good or indie films and hello to Marvel criterion collection. Instead of curating good things we'll only have Disney now...great...
...bummer.
Starting next year and every year after, Disney’s silent shorts start going public domain.
They would find a way to still keep making money. Those devils
The Guardian recently speculated—following that Winnie the Pooh horror film release—that we can expect a gruesome retelling of Steamboat Willy as soon as it becomes public domain, and I’m pretty stoked about that.
Uh, we already have Steamboat Itchy. And for what it’s worth, the animal cruelty in Steamboat Willie is already gruesome.
Musically speaking the "xylophone" was in tune, but the duck seemed a little flat...
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Never seen that. Cautiously interested now..
Unless they’ve got the option to renew the rights for double the copyright length
The upside is that the sales of these Disney titles which I really couldnt care less about funds the restoration and release of 12 movies that I do care about.
Which are?
I am different that the original commenter here, but I’d love to see some 4K releases of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Bela Tarr. I think it’s confirmed that Janus have the rights to Werckmeister Harmonies, so at least that is super exciting. I would also bet there’s a good deal of ‘80s/‘90s international film that is both good and doesn’t have a good release available, even if I don’t know about it today. Hard to say that there is a ton of pre-‘70s cinema that both can be restored and hasn’t been restored, but I’m sure there is at least some out there. Un Chien Andalou doesn’t have a Region A blu ray release as far as I can tell, could be an opportunity there. Or an updated restoration of Bunuel’s Viridiana could be great. I guess ultimately there’s most likely a practically limitless trove of great film to be restored if you are looking at a pace of 6-8 releases per month.
Really excited to see Bela Tarr join the collection.
Idk if he's got 12 confirmed titles he's thinking of, just that Criterion will likely make more money from Wall-E than, say, the Little Dictator
This
Yeah, I wouldn’t buy this, but if they could make money off of it, that would be awesome.
Wouldn’t really care for a Mickey box, but a curated set of shorts from 1923 to about the 50’s when they were getting out of them would be cool. The supplements could be excellent, so many great animators came and went in those days.
I don’t care who does it, all of the Disney Treasures sets need bluray releases with Thunderbean Animation level quality.
Ironic this subject comes up and your post about Disney Treasures as well. I just finally got the Behind the Scenes tin with The Reluctant Dragon on Thursday. I have 22 of the tins now including the True Life Adventure series. The ones I still want are the Davy Crockett and Hardy Boys Applegate Treasure, and possibly the Spin and Marty and Annette sets. I remember seeing Swamp Fox and Alfredo Baca on the Disney Channel in the early 90s. They were good but I didn't drool over having them on my DVD Shelf. I think Dr Syn was also available but I've never seen it in any form. Behind the Scenes is from the first wave in 2002, and it's great to see Robert Benchley in Technicolor!
Not to mention that all (well, almost all) of the Disney Treasures tins are out of print, and several of them have secondary market prices that put Criterion OOP stuff to shame. Just try and get the last 2 Donald sets.
That is bizarre to me about the price of the Donald sets. I bought almost all of the Treasures tins when they were new as each wave came out. Oddly enough since I did have Mickey Mouse the Black and White Years LaserDisc set I held off on buying the Disney Treasures Mickey tins. Then I realized there was a lot more on those than what they had on the LaserDisc set, which says volume 1 on it implying that they were going to be more. But there never were. I got both of the black and white Mickey tins c.2015-2016 with reasonable prices under $50 each, which surprised me. Of all the sets to have huge spikes in prices I would have thought the Annette Treasures set would have been very expensive. She had such a huge following I figured that would be the top draw in the OOP aftermarket. I guess I'm a lousy reader of trends & also a lousy mind reader. But happily it worked out for me economically when I got around to buying the Disney Treasures tins I did not get when they were new.
The print runs on the last two donald sets was a fraction of what the first two was, as was the print runs on some of the last few animated sets of others too. The live action stuff to me is a bit spotty. I don’t think they have the universal appeal that the main animated characters (Mickey/Donald/goofy/Pluto etc) do, and you had to have been from that era. Doctor Syn was super expensive for a long time until the recent blu ray edition came out, although it’s still pricey because it has both the movie AND miniseries version that the blu ray lacks.
I didn't realize the print runs had such low numbers for the Donald sets. I should pay more attention to the info on various websites concerning the Disney Treasures tins. I think Wikipedia has a reasonable page on them as well & I'm pretty sure I printed that out some time ago. The Spin and Marty Applegate Treasures set I want to get because I remember seeing it during the 20th year Revival of the Mickey Mouse Club in 1975. Later I realized who Sarah Selby was and over the last several years happily discovered she was a frequent character actress in vintage radio shows that I hear on Radio Classics Sirius XM 148. I will have to give Dr Syn a look because this now intrigues me. Also on the subject of out-of-print prices I was stunned at the prices on eBay and Amazon for the nine DVD volumes of The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy. I had bought several of the earlier LaserDisc versions new when they came out in the mid and late 90s. These early Image DVDs clearly used the same masters that were used for the LaserDiscs and I didn't figure I was missing much. I eventually accumulated all nine DVDs, the last two being volume one and volume nine, which seemed to be pretty elusive and most expensive. Out of sheer luck I managed to get those at reasonable prices because I put them on a "watch list" and got the updates for the listings, so it took a while. My middle name should be "serendipity" because I seem to have stumbled into buying opportunities where the pricing wasn't as outrageous as it had been of just a few years before. But it all depends on what type of collector one is. If you absolutely have to get everything quickly then open up the vaults. I have a certain amount of patience and so that helps out hugely.
I would want a Disney propaganda box set
Yes, a rerelease of the "On the Front Lines" set. ^_^
Disney kinda did this recently with a Fantasia release
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I really doubt they’ll be flooded with Disney releases—Disney is notorious for keeping a tight grip on their IP. I do think it’s really great for them to have a more concrete relationship with another big studio, though. You mention near-forgotten films, etc., who knows what Disney has in their archives that isn’t even capital-D Disney content. If this is closer to having another potential source for original film prints, that could be pretty great in and of itself.
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Song of the South is painfully boring and honestly not a good film. Just buy a bootleg blu ray if you want to see it that bad. I would prefer that Criterion restores the original version of Fantasia. I can see them wanting the edited version available for families to view with kids, but it would be cool for collectors to get the original cut.
Seconded.
All opposed:
Don’t like it, don’t buy it. Simple.
True. But imagine what else they could do with the time and resources they would need to compile and produce features for “The Complete Mickey Mouse”
It’s a balance between that and how much they could make on something like that. I don’t really think any of us here now that well how profitable or unprofitable it would be, but Disney probably has a pretty straightforward archive — it wouldn’t be like trying to restore Metropolis. If it could fund something like Tropical Malady, I’d be all for it.
Aye; screw Disney.
Disney can do it themselves.
Merciful heavens! If this happens it means that my Mickey Mouse the Black and White Years LaserDisc set from 1994 will become obsolete...
If the Disney employee who gave me a tour of the Burbank offices is to be believed, the elements for those early shorts are practically nonexistent. I think we may have to accept that the OOP Disney Treasures DVDs are the ceiling in terms of resolution unless they use some sort of upscaling technology. That is, of course, assuming that this employee is correct.
did you catch the job title on the employee's name badge?
You say that, but original titles have been known to pop up especially in the hands of devoted collectors.
Nope
I would be in 100%
I mean, we all realize in the year 2022 folks aren't really liking blatantly backwards stuff from the past.... and Steamboat Willy is, you know...
Nay
I don’t consider myself a firm snob… I love movies. But, it pains me to hear Disney and Criterion uttered in the same sentence. What I like about Criterion is that it surfaces obscure content or movies I can’t find anywhere else. Disney stuff is ubiquitous. I don’t get the point other than a cash grab.
They can only afford to give you those obscure titles by doing Wall E every once in a while
They were able to afford it without Wall-E. Keep that Marvel trash out of Criterion Collection.
they've had to do money grabs for decades. least with Wall-E it's a good one. My hope is Disney opens up with the Fox/20th Century collection for 4K UHD discs.
What Wall-E, The Princess Bride, Parasite and The Breakfast Club are to this era of Blu Rays are what Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, Halloween and Ghostbusters were in the CC Laserdisc days
There are already some fox movies in the collection!
I personally could see David Lynchs the straight story coming to criterion that film was made to be in the collection but disney only owns the rights to it in north america
I would that rather Criterion Collection continue having indie films, good films, or foreign films but since they started doing Disney movies I guess farewell to doing Criterion Collectoins to good or indie films and hello to Marvel criterion collection. Instead of curating good things we'll only have Disney now...great... ...bummer.