quote: Mike Croaro

---

They released a whole slew of great movies in the early 90's

---

Like Barney's Great Adventure?? heh

-Aaron
 

---

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 11-07-2005, 01:12 PM:
 
Aaron's right I forgot all about those two other company names.
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-07-2005, 05:03 PM:
 
Most of the Polygram releases were scattered all over the place through those various buy outs and mergers.

"The Usual Suspects" is one such example. Logic would have held that it would have become a Universal Pictures property. But to reduce debt, the property was sold off (along with many others) to MGM.

In the end, the movie companies are often just buying a brand name and little else. At least that is the end result, with perhaps a handful of guys making some money. Pretty kooky. But then that kookiness might explain why those distribution companies continue to recklessly squeeze commercial theaters ever worsening financial situations. The movie industry is no movie industry at all without the theaters. The suits in Hollywood seriously need to wake up and realize that fact. Anything less is just TV. Doesn't matter how fancy or how digital it will still only be friggin' TV.
 

---

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-08-2005, 02:10 AM:
 
What amazes me is that they can't see what is right in front of them. Releasing a film to video, DVD, cable what have you, without a theatrical run is done all the time; it's called MADE FOR TV MOVIES. That's what you get when you don't have a theatrical run. Do these smart Hollywood execs think they can make those 40 or 50 million in the first weekend that they all have wet dreams about, from a made-for-tv-movie? Are these people on crack? And someone should tell them that for all their lust about controlling their product and wringing out every dollar from every human being on the planet, when you sell a DVD before most of the public can get to a theatre to see it there, you loose LOTS of control and revenue.

When people go to see a movie in a movie theatre, you get to extract $10 for every ass that sits in a seat. Once it is released on DVD, or pay-per-view or whatever else other that a movie theatre, then everything changes. The studio's control is gone. Someone buys the DVD or better yet, rents it for a pittance and instead the studio now getting $9, per rider, they have sold the whole horse. So John Q Public can ride anytime he wants. Now he has the DVD in his fat little fingers and he and his family and probably a number of his kids and their friends and their friends' friends all come over to watch this hot new DVD. Haven't any of these overpaid excs figured out that their studio gets not a penny from all those asses that are now NOT sitting in theatre seats, but are in lounge chairs and sofas over which the studio accounting department has no control whatsoever?

And where kids especially have gone to movies they get hooked on many times over. PAYING full price each time, they now get to simply push the play button (unfortunately for the studio, not the pay button) and all those repeat sales are lost.

For all their bitching and moaning about lost sales to piracy and how DVD piracy costs them billions, it is confounding how these same people can't see how early ancillary market sales of a movie hurts their bottom line.
 

---

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 11-08-2005, 06:15 AM:
 
Simultaneous release to video sure solves the PIRACY problem. The studios have become their own pirate. Frank appears to have a complete and full understanding of the Hollywood mentality as I see it. Louis
 

---