While Disney’s long history of vaulting its own films in an effort to create artificial demand for those vaulted films is set to come to an end with Disney+, it seems 20th Century Fox classics such as The Fly, The Omen and Alien are now taking the place of the likes of The Lion King and Peter Pan.
A new report from Vulture explains that requests to screen some classic Fox films are being refused, with the simple explanation from a Fox booking agent that they could “no longer book repertory titles.” Vulture explains that it seems the decision is aimed at cinemas that profit from distributing older titles alongside new ones, where non-profit organisations will still be able to show them:
Disney officially declined to comment for this piece, but a film distributor with firsthand knowledge of the company’s policy says it is directed at theaters that screen first-run Disney and Fox content alongside older titles. The distributor said that screenings of vintage Fox films would still be allowed at nonprofit theaters such as Film Forum in New York and Segundo’s Old Town Music Hall, and in some other venues, including outdoor screenings in public spaces and at museums and cultural institutions (particularly ones dedicated to cinema, such as the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York, and the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago).
Queues outside the Egyptian Theatre on Alien’s opening day on May 23rd 1979.
Something to note is that the Vulture reports that each request is actually judged on a case-by-case basis, with exceptions for things such as anniversaries:
And there might be some exemptions granted for special occasions such as anniversaries. But each instance would be considered on a case-by-case basis, with no guarantee that the decision will go the theater’s way, no matter what Fox films it had been able to wrangle a week, a month, or a year earlier.
Relating specifically to this news and Alien, the article also provides an example of how Disney’s vaulting policy has already stopped a screening of Alien:
In August, Rachel Fox, the senior programmer for the Rio Theater near Vancouver, tried to book the original Alien to play alongside the upcoming Alien making-of documentary, Memory: The Origins of Alien. Disney told her that the title was unavailable, even though Alien has had one-off screenings in theaters all over North America throughout 2019, the movie’s 40th anniversary year, and is being shown via satellite in hundreds of theaters by Fathom Events this month.
From the perspective of an Alien and Predator fan, where I believe this may impact us most is in smaller cinemas such as The Prince Charles Cinema (I pick on this solely because I’ve been to showings there several times) in England that frequently run the older films. I expect it’s likely we’ll still see screenings for larger events such as Alien Day or this year’s 40th anniversary of Alien. But that is just supposition on my part.
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Geez, James Cameron still has to review the blu-ray transfers for True Lies and The Abyss. Fans have only been waiting forever for those...
I don't expect Aliens or Alien³ re-releases.
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Appreciators of good storytelling.
Qui-Gon Jinn: The Alien Franchise.
Darth Maul: The Disney monopoly.
It looks like 4 very small disc wallets.
By then a pack of gum will cost you $10, so I can see it.
Never had one, and 95% of my dvds are gone.
Not to mention the millions of people who still don't have decent internet, or any internet at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX
They will eventually stop printing a run of discs, that's pretty much expected. Without significant overhaul or another release I don't know why they would make another set. We're really only going to be in trouble if they scour the internet to remove all the DVD's from the store fronts and somehow purge them from retail stores.
I'd imagine you should still be able to rent Aliens from PSN or pick up a copy of Predator 2 at Walmart.
Technically if you aren't in a hurry to see it, you can just get it for free eventually. I kind of like seeing movies in the big screen though, even though I don't enjoy most of the stuff that gets released these days.
Come at me brah.
The storage solution and organization industry would disagree.
I don't see how it could be a huge portion of the market.
That might be exactly why they did it.
The fee to get it screened might not be worth it given I can't imagine there is enough of these theaters for it to be a particular boon. It has a stake in two other services with Fox products and theirs a bunch of theaters screening the Fox library that Disney could be getting DVD/Blu-ray sales off of, or even streaming be it from Amazon, PSN, Microsoft, or their own sites.
It sucks it'll be removed but on Disney's end one way or the other it makes little difference to them. They could keep it around and let the small notch in streaming sales happen, or they cut it and almost no difference in sales are likely to occur. One way or the other independent theaters are irrelevant to them.
His corny jokes against bad guys were just his form of dealing with being Spider-Man. With Holland everything is just on a plate for him and it's just too easy. (Talking to you there Mr Stark!) It's almost a different character entirely.
The original Spider-Man films while not perfect nailed the essence of Spider-Man from the comics.
Into the spider-verse is another example of how to do this character.
Why can't marvel get its own characters right? Yet Sony can? My conclusion is marvel could get their characters right if they wanted to, but Disney interferes too much.
And TCW is superior to anything Lucasfilm's done without George Lucas since. And Rogue One is good yes, but it's incredibly disingenuous to say it's all sunshine and roses, the general audience score isn't anywhere near good for the sequel era, regardless of critical opinion.
But they gave us the MCU though.
I had a blast with it.
What I liked is it wasn't afraid to take risks, it wasn't a happy ending and it was absolutely epic seeing Darth Vader again. Also I think it nailed the doom and gloom feel of the empire strikes back.
For what it's worth I'd say rogue one beats any of the prequels.
If they could replicate rogue ones success with alien and predator. I'd be a happy man.
Objectively correct.
His downward slide began with the rubbish creations - the Ewoks. There hasn't been a truly great STAR WARS film since The Empire Strikes Back.
True, he gave us STAR WARS - then takes it back and replaces it with 'plastic' STAR WARS. The 1997 / 2004 / 2011 / ? SPECIAL EDITIONS are a travesty.
It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: "The prequels suck the fat one - BIG TIME!"
Yep! Just lazily ignore all the positive reviews, which is the complete opposite of the Transformers.
Sure have they become too powerful absolutely YES.
But..
Everyone seems to forget what a terrible job George Lucas did with the Star Wars prequels. Disney bashers and ultra Star Wars fans are quick to point fingers yet it's like they have selective memories. I think Disney's efforts have been far better, especially rogue one. Which imho was the best Star Wars film made since The empire strikes back.
I say this because it's almost like history repeating itself, has everyone just gone and forgot what a terrible job Fox was doing with alien and predator? Especially predator. (Just look at The predator)
People say Disney are just hungry for money, but from where Iv been standing it's been Fox who that fits more with.
They have been feeding us garbage since god knows when and it's about the only consistent thing about 20th century fox in terms of alien and predator.
I'm glad they don't have creative control with both franchises anymore. Fresh minds and fresh talent are what both franchises have needed for a long time.
Let's just hope Disney get this right.
The weird thing is, because of the sickening cult-like mentality surrounding comic book movies these days we have to pretend they're genius works of art instead of bloated mediocrities with serviceable writing and charismatic actors.
Indeed...