Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Paramount films from Lionsgate

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-12-2010, 03:24 AM:

When I was a little boy growing up in Hawaii, I used o love THE PHANTOM comic books and newspaper strips and was delighted when Paramount Pictures released a movie version in 1996 starring Billy Zane in the title role along with Kristy Swanson, Kathrine Zetta Jones & Treat Williams. I saw the movie in a theatre and again tonight in High Definition from a newly Released Blu-Ray disc. Instead of a Paramount Home Video release, the BD was released by Lionsgate.. What exactly is going on here? Unlike other pictures released to theatres by one studio and the home video reverts to another , THE PHANTOM is treated like a Paramount picture with the logo intact in the credits and the back cover of the BD. Picture and sound quality was excellent and like previous Lionsgate releases, the Blu-Ray was bare bone with only the theatrical trailer. Lionsgate will also release another Paramount film very soon on Blu-Ray. The next one will be JADE a 1995 film directed by William Friedkin and starring David Caruso and Linda Florentino. Paramount Pictures is part of the Viacom Company. Is Lionsgate part of that company too?

-Claude

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-12-2010, 08:27 AM:

Paramount has licensed those catalog titles to Liongates for release on Blu-ray. A few months ago Paramount Home Video was looking around for another studio to handle their video catalog like Fox does with the MGM catalog.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 02-12-2010, 12:18 PM:

That is very interesting Bill

Do you think Lionsgate will eventually release WINGS, a 1927 Paramount film directed by William Welman and the very first movie to receive the Best Picture Academy Award Gary? Cooper did not star in this film but was in one scene and I was told this film had launched his movie career. It is very interesting Paramount would license some of their recent catalogue titles to Lionsgate while their home video division released IT'S A WONDERFL LIFE on Blu-Ray last Christmas and THE AFRACAN QUUEN I believe is coming in June. IAWL was produced by Liberty Pictures and originally released to theatres by RKO and TAQ was a Horzon production and released by United Artist. I have noticed the two Paramount feature films such as THE PHANTOM they had just released and JADE are fairly new Paramount films but I hope they will go way back into the Paramount vault and release WINGS and other early films from that studio. It is very interesting Paramount would license their catalogue films to Lionsgate. I can understand why MGM's recent films would be distributed by Fox because they have no home video division anymore. Both Fox and Warner Brothers are still releasing their older film classics through their own home video division. Warners as you know is also handling the older MGM films From Turner Movie Classics. Come to think of it, Universal has the rights to older Paramount films including WINGS. Why they are sitting on this is very puzzling.

-Claude

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-12-2010, 01:23 PM:

Hi Claude

The only thing I've heard was Lionsgate was just doing catalog Blu-ray titles from Paramount so far. Paramount licensed 40 odd catalog titles to Legend Films back in 2008 for dvd release. All were regular versions (widescreen if availible) with maybe a trailer. If Paramount was to release Wings it would be in their Centennial Collection of films.
Did you see that Universal and MGM is doing that archive thing that Warner did. Universal has made afew titles availible over on Amazon. It's called their Vault Series. Go to Amazon and search Blue Collar with Richard Pryor and look in the middle of the page for other titles. MGM only has a few titles too. Try Trapeze for the MGM titles.