The Arrow Thread

[J Harker]

I've just ordered the Ltd Ed of Society as reading through the comments for the standard release Arrow have mentioned it's nearly sold out.

[Nordicdusk]

The Mutilator

[JAMIOUSE]

Yeah bit of a mixed bag of announcements today, I'm only really interested in The Mutilator out of those. The rest I'll possibly rent off of LoveFilm. I hope they've got a stack of pure horror titles for October.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

These are all of the Arrow Video & Arrow Films Limited Edition sets:

[Rik]

Don't forget Withnail & I

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Rik

Don't forget Withnail & I

D'oh! How did I forget that? I'll try and photograph them all a bit later.

[VeZius]

Originally Posted by VeZius

Zardoz confirmed!

No limited editions this time around?

To answer myself, it seems booklets are getting limited!

From Arrow FB:

Our releases of Hard to be a God, The Firemen's Ball and Closely Observed Trains all come with booklets, but on a limited basis only (2000 copies each). Here's the specs for each:
Hard to be a God: Booklet with original writing on the film by Jonathan Romney and a statement by Aleksei German, extensively illustrated with original stills and behind-the-scenes images
The Firemen's Ball: Illustrated collector’s booklet containing new writing on the film by Peter Hames, author of 'The Czechoslovak New Wave', and an excerpt from Miloš Forman’s memoir
Closely Observed Trains: Illustrated collector’s booklet containing new writing on the film by Jonathan Owen, author of 'Avant-Garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties'
Being these are limited they may even expand beyond these contents when they're finished!

That's kinda annoying...

[J Harker]

Wonder if its a tactic to try and get more copies sold up front rather than to people like me that have no shame and more often than not catch up during their sales.

[Michael Brooke]

Originally Posted by J Harker

Wonder if its a tactic to try and get more copies sold up front rather than to people like me that have no shame and more often than not catch up during their sales.

That is indeed the idea. Pay a realistic price early in the release cycle and you'll get the best possible product. But if you wait with the cynical intention of paying as little as you can get away with, it's increasingly likely that you'll get less in return.

It's the inevitable result of the unfortunate combo of situations whereby the physical-media market is inexorably shrinking but BDs are significantly underpriced relative to their production costs - and this has a disproportionate impact on independent labels because they can't achieve the same economies of scale that the majors can with their massive print runs.

So all independent labels are wrestling with similar issues - they're just addressing them in different ways. In recent months, the BFI has made a substantial shift towards a "limited BD edition followed by an unlimited DVD one" model, whereas Arrow is at least proposing to keep the BDs permanently in print (at least for the duration of their licence), but not necessarily always with the booklets.

[J Harker]

All fair points Michael. However when Arrow have a sale every few months and something that was £15.99 on release in say January is £7.99 in April surely a consumer can't be blamed for waiting.