(no subject)

[bubosquared]

Somebody wanna explain to me the log behind the HP movie release schedule? I understand why the US, Canada and the UK are in one "timeslot". But why do we (Belgium get associated with the Phillipines, and why does Taiwan ge it before us?

Bizarre.

Comments

I've never truly understood

[icanreadyourmnd.livejournal.com]

the European timelag in movie releases. Altho, when I used to sell translation rights to novelizations, the time lag was a useful thing because it allowed time for the publishers translation and acquisition of duplicate film for production of their edition. Altho, today worldwide movie releases are nearly simultaneous. I think it has to do with the originating production company (in this case, it's an independent, who has a first look at Warner Brothers Pictures) and whether their backing entity has worldwide distribution potentialm or not. WB *should* have worldwide distribution, and therefore then didn't have to sell distribution in each territory to someone else.

So, I can't tell you why, in this case distribution is delayed for Belgium, behind even Taiwan. I *can* tell you that the time lag has definitely decreased. It used to be between 8 and 12 months whereas now it's between 3 and 6 months.

Re: I've never truly understood

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Oh, we're lucky to get it one week after the first daten, sreiously; Ep1 took over half a year! I'm just surprised is all.

then it's like I said

[icanreadyourmnd.livejournal.com]

WB doesn't have to sell distribution rights in every territory because they are a worldwide distributor in and of themselves, as well as a production company. It's why the producer who has the option on 'Three Investigators' and I wanted the same indie from the UK (I'm blanking on their name but they're a big deal now that they have Harry Potter) to work with her on this property, so the WB would pick it up and we wouldn't have to worry about selling the property to several different froeign distributors; it would be built in right from the get-go and the Germans who are currently on our backs for these rights would go away (or course, the same Germans who are on our backs are Super RTL who has 100% owned by the company that owns my company...and they can't understand why I won't give them a license for this property even tho this option predates both me AND them...).

Ep One is Lucas ... Lucas, big as they are (and as big a pain in the ass as they are) do not have worldwide distribution built in. They have to take their properties to various worldwide conventions and sell distribution rights (and I can guarantee to you that they get big dough from each territory for the right to distribute any such money in Belgium, Germany, Holland, France, Korea, Taiwan, etc., etc.). Lucas also own all the foreign translation rights to all the books they sold us to publish in the states and then they go and sell the translation rights to those for mega bucks in ech territory as well.

So I would guess that its the originator/backer (which aren't always the same) of a film that determines whether distrubution will be nearly simultaneous to US distribution (i.e. if they own worldwide distribution partners where they don't have to sell the right to distribute as with WB or like with Lucas they don't own worldwide distribution partners and do have to sell the rights).

If the contracts are anything like the contracts I used to do with translation and British rights, the acquiring distributors in each case would be given contractually a period of time within which to distribute the film translated/or not translated depending on the territory, and then said distributor would then have to sell copies of said film into the various theaters to first showing, second showing, etc., etc.

WB only has to do the theater thing since their worldwide distribution is already in place. It is then up to the distributor in each country to book the theaters......

I like book translation rights better ... less confusing.... :)

Re: then it's like I said

[bubosquared.livejournal.com]

Well, IIRRC, the problem with Ep1 was that we had to wait for the movie to be tranlated into french subtitles (movies in Belgium have subtitles in both Dutch and French at the same time), and because the movie didn't come out in France until mid-october (because of some contest attached to it that they had to prepare, or sommat), we didn't get it until then, either.

These things are v. bizarre. :)