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Disney doesn’t care. They’re offering the Fox back catalog to other directors for remakes and pointing to GDT’s Nightmare Alley redux as an example. The actual output of Fox, one of the greatest and most consistent of studios from the golden era, will all but fade way. It’s criminal

BuT tHe X-mEn GeT tO bE iN mOvIeS wItH tHe AvEnGeRs!

Here's hoping Hollywood never opens again

I’m fairly optimistic in the fullness of time titles will begin reappearing - again, Kino and Criterion both have had deals with Disney in the past several years. It won’t be the same, It’ll be way less, but I don’t think it will just all suddenly end, especially given there’s been essentially no effort shown in making the Fox catalog more accessible online.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine some of their best output getting upgraded now. I'd like to believe that someone over at Kino or Criterion will be championing stuff like Apartment for Peggy into their deals, but it just doesn't feel likely. I'm most depressed about the possibility that less formally-defined directors who did a solid chunk of their business there, like Mank, will be forgotten.

Yeah, any consolidation makes only the most popular titles float. If you've got the AFI top 100 why bother releasing anything else first?

The real tell tale sign is whether we see Fox titles go oop with Criterion. They champion themselves as not wanting to lose titles once they license them. If Fox titles start to disappear from CC then Disney will have no intention of having those films in the physical form. As Domino said and I’ve heard from other sources is that Disney is all about using these films to remake into modern versions and to shelve the old hollywood versions.

What are those kinds of deals usually like? You’d think that Criterion would want to make their licensing deals as bulletproof as possible after being burned by massive OOP waves in the past, and especially as much as they’ve relied on FOX/MGM in particular for so many high-profile titles over the last decade or so.

But I have no idea how much control they have over stuff like this.

They're probably solid until they have to be renewed.

I have a hard time seeing how all or most of those older movies will be remake-material. My Darling Clementine? All those Betty Grable musicals?

Those will just be thrown out.

Taylor Swift musicals!

Just panic-bought the other MOC Kazans I had been putting off.

Probably all the library experts and library execs working for Fox were all fired because they were “redundant” the Disney roles in the same jobs are now expected to run their catalog and fox’s catalog, double their workload with minimal to no staff increases. On top of this the people that were already working at Disney are there because they’re probably passionate about Disney’s library.

So not only do you have to have people that aren’t very interested in the Fox films with little knowledge of them, they’re now made hostile to the new library because it doubles their workload, and they have to integrate all the new assets in to a new system, and you have also have lost all the institutional knowledge of the experts fired by the merger. That means it’s going to be a long time before the Fox library is treated as well as the Disney library, probably in ten to fifteen years someone will have come up in house and staffing will have gradually expanded to accommodate the extra workload of the library.

FrauBlucher wrote: Tue Jul 14, 2020 2:21 pm The real tell tale sign is whether we see Fox titles go oop with Criterion.

Can someone with the knowledge to do so please do your fellow fans a public service and list the Fox titles licensed to Criterion? Now seems a good time to get them. Thanks in advance to to whomever has the kindness to take this on.

Based on their antiquated “Vault” system alone, I would argue Disney doesn’t even treat their own films well

Also all of the intense editing that they do. Fantasia for example hasn't been released uncut since the '80s.

wattsup32 wrote: Tue Jul 14, 2020 3:38 pm

FrauBlucher wrote: Tue Jul 14, 2020 2:21 pm The real tell tale sign is whether we see Fox titles go oop with Criterion.

Can someone with the knowledge to do so please do your fellow fans a public service and list the Fox titles licensed to Criterion? Now seems a good time to get them. Thanks in advance to to whomever has the kindness to take this on.

They're helpfully listed on this very website.

wattsup32 wrote: Tue Jul 14, 2020 3:38 pmCan someone with the knowledge to do so please do your fellow fans a public service and list the Fox titles licensed to Criterion? Now seems a good time to get them. Thanks in advance to to whomever has the kindness to take this on.

These?

I’d point out that for whatever reason that list is including the MGM titles licensed through Fox’s output deal with them - which I don’t think are actually in danger.

The licensing for MGM titles usually list both Fox and MGM so that's why MGM titles are listed as well. I'll look at some sort of check box or something so users can just show the ones that are exclusively the one studio.

domino harvey wrote:Based on their antiquated “Vault” system alone, I would argue Disney doesn’t even treat their own films well

Well two things here. Internally, Disney’s films and television are treated reverentially and money is spent to maintain all the assets. Home video is another department and so what is distributed of all that expenditure for people to buy or to be licensed to other entities or to TV or now streaming is totally separate turf from the management of the actual films.

The vault system only ever applied to the biggest animated films and was intended to create artificial scarcity to drive purchases to high levels. And iirc, with the launch of Disney plus I think they officially retired it.

If they keep Song of the South locked in the vault, imagine what they'd do to No Way Out...

Aren’t there strong rumors that Warner Bros will take over distribution of the MGM films? Which would be much better for all

It's not rumors, it's what's happening, but it in all likelihood won't make any demonstrable difference on MGM titles being licensed out as everything will still be going through MGM (when Criterion wants to release the Great Escape, they have to go to MGM, they don't ask Fox). Other than that MGM titles seemed to slow down from all the labels in recent months (which should pick up again in the fullness of time) I don't really see anything being effected in any substantial way by this change. So don't go panic buying them.