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Does anyone know what the spirit of the beehive status is? It's only available from 3rd party sellers for $300 on Amazon and its currently backordered on criterion. What's curious is that the "in stock/available to ship" keeps getting pushed back day by day. Started out April 30th when I checked a few days ago, today it says May 3rd. I'll bet tomorrow it says May 4th. Could this hopefully be a sign of a blu ray upgrade? Or is it just wishful thinking? We did get the announcement for El Sur last month. I just hope it's not out of print.

Might we be getting an upgrade of the whole set? I've held off buying the Blu of 400 Blows in hopes of that.

In particular I have only seen this on 3 box sets but on the new website if you go to any films in the Eisenstein Sound, AK 100, Teshigahara, and Sternberg Silents, it states "Ships Jun. 3, 2018" yet says OOP. I tried other films in OOP sets yet it doesn't say it is shipping. Is that a sign that possibly they will be re-released and they are prepping for a blu ray of any of these?

With the announcement of a touring copy of Andrei Rublev with the Janus logo it's a dead cert
for a Bluray upgrade within the next three months.

The Confession is listed as OOP on Criterion's website.

Nothing on State of Siege though. Is this temporary or is there cause for concern?

KJones77 wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:03 pm The Confession is listed as OOP on Criterion's website.

Nothing on State of Siege though. Is this temporary or is there cause for concern?

They did indeed lose the rights to The Confession.

I wonder if it isn't a supplement that they've actually lost the rights to. Both this and State of Siege appear to be licensed directly from Costa-Gavras' production company.

Why no warning? I thought Criterion usually gave a heads-up about titles going OOP?

I don't think they've given a warning since the 2nd (and biggest) wave of StudioCanal OOPs

Strange, I wonder what happened - it hasn't been out on disc for long, but then again - they've had the rights for quite a long time before they finally got around to releasing it on disc.

It does appear that they still have it available to rent on Amazon / Youtube / etc - so it may be something related to the packaging / extras. As I don't really know why any other company would have any interest in licensing this - as the already very small market that would be interested in the film has a 2k restoration with a large amount of extras - so it would be a very tough sell for another company.

I'm more inclined to blame the extras - Portrait London or You Speak of Prague: The Second Trial of Artur London - otherwise I think we'd be seeing State of Siege go at the same time. Good time to buy both if you can though.

KJones77 wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:03 pm The Confession is listed as OOP on Criterion's website.

Nothing on State of Siege though. Is this temporary or is there cause for concern?

As of earlier today, State of Siege is not available/out of stock on Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's online stores. My local B&N still has one in stock, and Criterion's online store is still selling them.

Could the B&N/Amazon shortage be due to people panic buying "just in case" after The Confession going OOP? Or is there genuine cause for concern that State of Siege will soon follow it?

ModelShopAbschied wrote: Mon Jul 23, 2018 2:50 am

KJones77 wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:03 pm The Confession is listed as OOP on Criterion's website.

Nothing on State of Siege though. Is this temporary or is there cause for concern?

As of earlier today, State of Siege is not available/out of stock on Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's online stores. My local B&N still has one in stock, and Criterion's online store is still selling them.

Could the B&N/Amazon shortage be due to people panic buying "just in case" after The Confession going OOP? Or is there genuine cause for concern that State of Siege will soon follow it?

If your local store has a copy, I say just buy one. I already owned The Confession, but not State of Siege - and rushed over to my local BN to pickup the only copy they had. Its 50% off anyway, so might as well just play it safe. FYI -apparently BN will only place an "until the end of the day" hold on Criterions during the sale.

If State of Siege goes OOP - then that means its a problem with both of them + the licensor, if State of Siege doesn't go OOP, then its down to one of the extras. I'd keep an eye on it, but I really suspect the latter -since both of these films were released + licensed from the same company at the same time, so they should in theory go OOP at the same time.

Don't pay scalper prices (and don't be a scalper yourself and buy multiple copies to sell at inflated prices later) anywhere (especially sinces its only $32 on Criterion's site right now, but I'd certainly err on the side of caution if you are interested in it / don't want to regret it later. At least until we figure out what's going on with The Confession and why it went OOP. I suspect panic buyers are eating up Amazon's /BN's small stock of this usually lesser-selling title.

It's a good thing I looked in here last night, otherwise I probably wouldn't have known that The Confession was out-of-print. As I went to the Barnes and Noble site to order online and pick up in-store, the site started going wonky (and right around 3:00 a.m. EDT / 12:00 a.m. PDT, to boot), saying that both The Confession and State of Siege were unavailable to buy online and pick up, meaning I had to wait for the stores to open and call to check stock levels. Sadly, my local store already had its lone copy on hold for someone else, but I was able to secure both movies at a location about a dozen miles away, and the same location sold me seven more titles to almost complete my sale haul. Now all that remains is to get A Matter of Life and Death tomorrow.

And for what it's worth, it seems that State of Siege is not out-of-print, only The Confession is.

Even thought The Confession and State of Siege were licensed from the same company, they had different production companies that made them. One of the companies behind The Confession was Les Films Corona, and a number of films that they produced are now owned by StudioCanal. So maybe the issue is with Costa-Gavras' company's rights to the film and that is why State of Siege is still in print.

dwk wrote:Even thought The Confession and State of Siege were licensed from the same company, they had different production companies that made them. One of the companies behind The Confession was Les Films Corona, and a number of films that they produced are now owned by StudioCanal. So maybe the issue is with Costa-Gavras' company's rights to the film and that is why State of Siege is still in print.

This sounds like the most plausible explanation I’ve heard yet. Nice sleuthing.

dwk wrote: Mon Jul 23, 2018 11:50 pm Even thought The Confession and State of Siege were licensed from the same company, they had different production companies that made them. One of the companies behind The Confession was Les Films Corona, and a number of films that they produced are now owned by StudioCanal. So maybe the issue is with Costa-Gavras' company's rights to the film and that is why State of Siege is still in print.

Probably the answer here.

Unfortunately, this would throw a wrench into the recent rumors/hopes that StudioCanal and Criterion were speaking again.

KJones77 wrote: Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:22 amUnfortunately, this would throw a wrench into the recent rumors/hopes that StudioCanal and Criterion , were speaking again.

I wouldn't read anything into it in that regard. Assuming the rumors are true (and acknowledging that there is little direct evidence that they are), existing contract terms are what they are, and if rights expire, Studio Canal isn't just going to let it slide because the parties are "talking."

All of those rumors about Studio Canal titles coming back in print...which always seem to start with this forum!

The reason for the most recent rumors is because a SC rep was at the Criterion office. Has to be something to it. Didn’t think she stopped by for afternoon tea. But it could be anything from a few newer catalogue titles joining the Collection to the OOPs. I guess we’ll find out within the next year or two.

Can someone give me a quick summary of why Studio Canal reneged on licensing out to Criterion?

I don’t think there’s anything to know except that StudioCanal’s deal with Criterion ended and they signed a new one with Lionsgate.

The problem seems to be that Lionsgate has an exclusive contract with StudioCanal in the US and won’t sublicense like Fox with MGM. They sat on most of the Republic library for years like this, too.

Brian C wrote: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:59 pm I don’t think there’s anything to know except that StudioCanal’s deal with Criterion ended and they signed a new one with Lionsgate.

I think that it's safe to assume that Lionsgate was willing to give more cash upfront, possibly tied to a higher royalty rate.

The unknowable questions is whether the upfront cash that StudioCanal received makes up for what appears to minimal royalties from the total failure to exploit the StudioCanal library.

We're less than 24 months away from the 10th anniversary of the StudioCanal title purge; it's not unreasonable to think that the Lionsgate deal was 10 years, and if so about now would be the time for SC to think about what's next. Certainly looking at the landscape since then, only Criterion and a handful of other boutique labels would be able to monetize the SC catalog.