If there are any Sony Muppets DVDs you want...get them FAST!

[Jake Lipson]

It just occured to me that, since Disney now owns the entire Muppet film and television library, they also have ownership rights to The Muppet Movie, Great Muppet Caper, Muppets From Space, The Muppets Take Manhattan and Kermit's Swamp Years (as well as the Muppet Show) previously released by Sony Pictures/Colombia TriStar. This means that Sony no longer has rights to distribute these titles and will have to take them out of print.

Now, these weren't too great in terms of extras, but a lot of times they did present the movies in OAR and P&S. as opposed to Disney's disturbing treatment which gave us some good extras put P&S prints of the movies. Message to Disney: All the extras in the world mean nothing if the movie isn't presented as the filmmakers intended.

Disney will have several choices in how they go about reissuing Sony's old discs. They can:
1) Repackage them as is as dual sided discs with P&S on one side and OAR on the other;
2) Move both movie prints to one side to allow for their standard disc art on family titles;
3) Get rid of one version to allow for disc art;
4) Do completely new discs.
5) Release seperate WS/FS versions and discontinue one later (cough.)

Knowing Disney's attitude about such titles being "kids movies" and their thinking that kids can't stand the black bars, my guess is they'll drop the widescreen version.

So...if there are any Muppet movies you want that you haven't got already on DVD and Sony released them: GO GRAB THEM ASAP to ensure you get a proper widescreen version. I know I've gotta get all 5, yikes.

[2099net]

It just occured to me that, since Disney now owns the entire Muppet film and television library, they also have ownership rights to The Muppet Movie, Great Muppet Caper, Muppets From Space, The Muppets Take Manhattan and Kermit's Swamp Years (as well as the Muppet Show) previously released by Sony Pictures/Colombia TriStar. This means that Sony no longer has rights to distribute these titles and will have to take them out of print.

Well techically they are unlikely to have to take them out of print now. There distribution contract will still be valid until it expires, while the owners of the Muppets may have changed hands, all existing licencing and distribution deals will remain in place until they expire (although it has been mentioned that it expires in 60 days - something I find doubtful as the UK has a third Best of the Muppets DVD from Columbia due out in March, why would they wait until the very end of their distribution deal?) and even when that expires, there will be a period of grace (normally a few months) before titles have to be pulled from the shops.

I would expect it to be a year (or longer) before Disney reissues any of the discs themselves.