I've been catching up on some of my stockpiled Blue Underground Blu-ray releases. Manic, Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Toolbox Murders, etc. I had been holding out hope over the last year that if any company would start putting out Franco in an HD format it would've been these guys. However, it seems they're more interested (and I can't honestly say wrongfully so) in releasing Dario Argento's catalogue over the next six months. Commercially, and especially for a low-budget/high-end HD distributor, this move makes way more sense. It's just a shame, as they have the lush Venus in Furs, Eugenie de Sade and Eugenie... the story of her journey into perversion.However, I have serious doubts that the mere popularity of Argento's films is the sole reason holding up these releases. After all, there are other distribution companies that are releasing Blu-rays now who hold the rights to some of Franco's massive catalogue. (Image and Anchor Bay UK, possibly?) Another reason could be the rights licencing has expired... but really, what I fear is that it was the digitally technical aspect that allowed the Franco films to be restored onto DVD in the first place that's going to bite HD fans in the ass.
After watching some of the behind-the-scenes on the Anchor Bay UK box-set release of his films, I was witness to an extremely informative documentary on the restoration process of some of these Jess Franco titles. It broke down like this:
They transferred the film to digital media (in other words, they digitized the films). Creating mpeg2 standard-definition files from this digitization, the restoration thus began -- on the mpeg 2 files themselves. Hence, the digital restoration on Franco's films were attributed solely to the standard-definition DVD files they were going to be using to author the DVDs themselves. In order to go back to do a restoration for Blu-ray, they would have to do this entire process over again, starting with the original film prints.
Does it seem likely that these companies would take the time, under current economic circumstances, to do such a thing? Once again, I have my doubts. Still, I'm hoping Blue Underground or Image, who would appear to have some success with commercial Blu-ray releasing, will at some point get to these titles sitting at the back of their catalogues and throw dogs like me a bone.So here's to patiently waiting...
-V.
3 comments:
Yeah you're probably right about them having to start from zero with HD releases...what a bummer
I know Severin has high-def masters of their Franco releases, as does Mondo Macrabro with their two most recent Francos. I'd be shocked if Blue Underground didn't have them for some or all of their Franco titles, as well.
A far more likely explanation for the lack of Franco on Blu-ray is just the cost involved in releasing to Blu-ray. It's an extremely expensive proprietary boondoggle of a format, and, while Sony's fees are absolutely insane (and never end as long as the product is on the market), Blu-ray discs simply don't sell in the U.S. (other than a very few upbudget Hollywood "blockbuster" films--mostly big effects shows). When it comes to niche-market items like Franco's movies, spending the money for a Blu-ray release is always a tough sell. In most cases, the fees alone significantly exceed the total likely profits.[*]
These fees will never go away--Sony has practically drowned itself in red ink in an effort to get people to adopt, and extracting those exorbitant fees for a proprietary format they controlled was the entire point of the exercise--and it seems unlikely they'll drop to any real extent, either, because Blu-ray sales may have already peaked. We're nearly five years into the format, and in any given week, Blu-ray discs make up only 11-20% of total disc sales; with few exceptions, they've remained within that same narrow range for more than two years.
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[*] That said, Blue Underground has released some titles on Blu-ray that I'd think have an even smaller market than Franco's films, but BU seemed, at first, to be pursuing a strategy of releasing in volume, and I imagine it bit them, because they've pulled back from that.
Great feedback.
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