Exactamente ¿qué es la Criterion Collection?

[maur0]

Excelente Articulo, menciona que la mayor parte de las ediciones de Criterion venden 15,000 copias si les va bien. Claro, hay excepciones.

CRITERION MAKES 'SPECIAL' DVDS
Titles priced at higher end of disc market
By Anthony D'Alessandro 2/8/2005
Onetime laserdisc company The Criterion Collection has morphed into a producer of carefully crafted niche DVDs.

The label focuses on special edition discs featuring filmmaker commentaries of the sort Criterion founders Roger Smith and Bob Stein pioneered on their laser releases. Seven years after switching to DVD, Criterion also is committed to higher-end pricing.

"This is a low-volume, high-margin business," said Adrianne Furniss, CEO at Home Vision Entertainment, which distributes Criterion titles. "Our fan base allows us to predict the number of units we'll move out the door."

Since publishing its first DVD title, Grand Illusion in 1998, Criterion decided to index the spines of its titles, fueling an obsession among its cineaste consumers to swipe up every title, which currently number 281.

High prices coupled with a loyal fan base has enabled the privately owned video company to take lucrative gambles in producing rich editions of cult, often obscure classics.

"Some of the films we work on have the least market promise," Criterion president Peter Becker said.

To produce the quintessential edition of Carl Theodor Dreyer's lost 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan Arc, Becker acquired the music license for composer Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light from Sony, an original orchestral work inspired by the film. Driven by critical reviews, Joan sold 15,000 units.

At $40 a pop, its estimated DVD gross was $600,000--not too shabby for a silent Danish film released in 1999.

Criterion can thrive on selling as few as 10,000 units per title, though Furniss said the label fares a lot better. Industry sales estimates peg the Criterion version of The Royal Tenenbaums at more than 150,000 units.

"I firmly believe this is an evergreen product," Furniss said. "We have decent sales out the door, but when our sales dip six months out, we plateau and hold onto our numbers."

Currently, Criterion is enjoying robust sales for its fully loaded edition of Terry Gilliam's 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which on top of a director and cast commentary touts a track by author Hunter S. Thompson. In fact, Fear has become the label's No. 1 selling DVD, overtaking previous champ The Seven Samurai, with an estimated 300,000 units sold

Thanks to Fear, Criterion recently extended beyond title-driven retail outlets such as the Virgin Megastore to mass merchants including Best Buy.

Wes Anderson and even commercial powerhouse Michael Bay are among filmmakers who prefer Criterion as the video distributor for their special editions. Such support from the Hollywood community stems back to Criterion's foothold with laserdiscs in the late '80s to early '90s.

At the time, the majors didn't fully support the technology and provided Criterion with non-exclusive rights to notable movies. Criterion produced several audio commentaries such as Barbra Streisand's analysis of The Prince of Tides that have never seen the light of day on DVD due to rights issues.

In certain cases, these audio commentaries have surfaced on studio editions of films, as is the case with MGM's upcoming special edition of Raging Bull, which features Criterion's Martin Scorsese-Thelma Schoonmaker audio track. Other times, Criterion has been able to transfer its laserdisc version of a studio film to DVD, such as Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

Criterion draws a bulk of its titles from sister company Janus Films, whose film library houses foreign classics from Roman Polanski and Ingmar Bergman. Criterion also has an output deal with theatrical distributor Rialto Pictures, a New York-based company known for acquiring and restoring vintage classics.

"The company's mission has remained the same," mused Becker of the 21-year-old label, "to present a film in the way that their makers want it to be seen."

Copyright 2005 DVD Exclusive