- June 14th, 2011, 10:29 pm#328598
I wasn't sure if I should post this in the EGB or GB2 sections since it applies to both. I opted for the EGB section, since I can't cross-post it to both (without making two separate posts). Also, this is going to be a LONG post as I want to provide as much information as possible so I can get some good informed opinions back from all of you.
For those who don't know, Mill Creek Entertainment is a company known for releasing budget-priced DVDs. A long time ago they were known as Treeline Films, and are responsible for all of those 50-Pack and 100-Pack public domain movie collections you see cluttering up the $5 bins at Walmart and Target. In recent years they've been shying away from public domain material and putting out DVDs, and now Blu-rays, of licensed movies and TV shows. Among their recent offerings are DVDs and Blu-rays of lesser-known Touchstone Pictures films, such as some of the Ernest films, Big Business (Bette Midler & Lily Tomlin), V.I. Warshawski (Kathleen Turner & The L.A. Firehouse), and Straight Talk (Dolly Parton) - just to name a few. They also have a licensing deal with Stephen J. Cannell productions, so they've put out season and complete series sets for shows such as 21 Jump Street, Hunter, Renegade, The Greatest American Hero, and more. Not to mention that they acquired the assets of BCI/Eclipse, so they've released a lot of the Filmation animated shows in season and complete series sets.
Since they are keen on licensing properties from other companies, and have a tendency to release shows in season and/or complete series sets, and they offer their items for really cheap prices, I was thinking that maybe we should petition Mill Creek to license Extreme Ghostbusters from Sony and put out a complete series set.
The only Mill Creek Blu-ray I own is "Big Business", but the quality is really good. Much better than you'd expect for a Blu-ray disc that only cost $5 brand new in Target! The downside is that it only contains the movie. No bonus features at all. Not even a trailer. However, since it's pretty obvious to me that Sony has no intentions of releasing Ghostbusters II on Blu-ray themselves, I was thinking that maybe we should petition Mill Creek to license Ghostbusters II from Sony and put it out on Blu-ray. Granted, it would just be the movie, but as long as they keep it in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, a movie-only Blu-ray is better than no Blu-ray at all. Maybe with any luck, Mill Creek will make Ghostbusters II their first "deluxe" offering and get some bonus materials on there, thus letting them charge more for it then their usual stuff. I'd bet they'd be more willing to pay for bonus materials from the cast and crew - like William Forsche's behind the scenes videos - than Sony would. Heck, I'd be happy to give Mill Creek a copy of the GB2 EPK on DVD for free if they want to use it for bonus materials. All I'd want in return is a comp copy of the Blu-ray.
The reason I've given up on Sony ever putting Ghostbusters II out on Blu is that the perfect time for them to do it was back in 2009 when they put GB1 out on Blu. Every home video re-release of GB2 has been done in conjunction with GB1. It's never been released by itself, except for the original home video release back in 1990. Besides that, GB2 is the lesser-loved of the two films, so it only makes sense from a sales perspective to release it at the same time as the better-loved film, that being GB1. That's why I feel that if Sony had any intention of putting GB2 out on Blu, they would have done it already.
I can only think of one way that Sony would still release GB2 on Blu, and that's if they're holding it back as an incentive for fans to re-buy GB1 again in a "GB 1&2 Blu-Ray Double Pack" to be released whenever.
Now with all that said, and with all my cheerleading, I have mixed feelings about Mill Creek. One one hand, they put out complete series sets for a really cheap price and the quality is good. On the other hand, they do things as cheaply as possible, which results in:
1. Very thick standardized DVD packaging - Whether the set contains 1 disc or 20 discs, it will come packaged in a plastic case that's easily 1-inch thick with the discs stored in paper sleeves inside. Their Blu-rays are stored in normal Blu-ray packaging, thankfully.
2. Too much video put onto each disc - While the quality is definitely good, and there aren't any compression artifacts of note, like EastWest's "Double Feature" dollar DVDs (two full-length movies on a single-layer disc!), there's still way too much content being put onto the dual-layer discs. Looking over the TV-on-DVD sets I have of half-hour shows, 8 eps per disc is the standard limit the major studios adhere to. Mill Creek usually does 10 eps per disc. Sometimes 11 eps (see Sabrina The Animated Series), with their Sherlock Holmes (a 1950s B&W series) and One Step Beyond sets getting 13 eps per disc!!!
With EGB, I expect for them to put 10 eps per disc, 4 discs total, with no bonus features. It's very rare that they put bonus features on any of their releases.
3. A higher rate of faulty discs - I have a few discs where the beginnings of several episodes will play badly, and then after that it plays fine. I had one Beverly Hillbillies disc where an ep would not play at all. Mill Creek has great customer service and always sent me out replacements - and MANY free DVDs of other titles - but every single replacement has always had the same problems as the originals.
Also, they will occasionally split a series into Volumes, with no clear release date for the remaining volume(s). This has happened with the animated BKN series "Roswell Conspiracies", which only has half the series in the Vol. 1 release I have. I can only hope that one day Mill Creek puts out Vol. 2 with the remaining episodes. I hope it doesn't happen to "Sabrina The Animated Series" which got its "first half of the series" Vol. 1 release back in February. There's a chance they could put out only the first 20 episodes of EGB and not put out the rest.
Now, with all that said, do you guys think we should e-mail Mill Creek to suggest they get the Extreme Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II licenses from Sony and put the former out in a 40-episode complete series set, and the latter out on Blu-ray? Sure, both releases probably won't have any bonus materials - in regards to EGB, with 10 eps per disc the quality won't be as great as it could be - but I'd settle for a Mill Creek release if it means we'd get the entire EGB series released on DVD and the movie on Blu-ray here in the States. It's not like any other company is interested, including Sony.
Here are the e-mail addresses listed on the Mill Creek site.
* Acquisitions/Domestic Licensing/Foreign Licensing: content@millcreekent.com
* Sales Support: sales@millcreekent.com
* Customer Service/General Inquires/Publicity (for media inquiries only): support@millcreekent.com
I think the first address would be the most appropriate to use.
For those who don't know, Mill Creek Entertainment is a company known for releasing budget-priced DVDs. A long time ago they were known as Treeline Films, and are responsible for all of those 50-Pack and 100-Pack public domain movie collections you see cluttering up the $5 bins at Walmart and Target. In recent years they've been shying away from public domain material and putting out DVDs, and now Blu-rays, of licensed movies and TV shows. Among their recent offerings are DVDs and Blu-rays of lesser-known Touchstone Pictures films, such as some of the Ernest films, Big Business (Bette Midler & Lily Tomlin), V.I. Warshawski (Kathleen Turner & The L.A. Firehouse), and Straight Talk (Dolly Parton) - just to name a few. They also have a licensing deal with Stephen J. Cannell productions, so they've put out season and complete series sets for shows such as 21 Jump Street, Hunter, Renegade, The Greatest American Hero, and more. Not to mention that they acquired the assets of BCI/Eclipse, so they've released a lot of the Filmation animated shows in season and complete series sets.
Since they are keen on licensing properties from other companies, and have a tendency to release shows in season and/or complete series sets, and they offer their items for really cheap prices, I was thinking that maybe we should petition Mill Creek to license Extreme Ghostbusters from Sony and put out a complete series set.
The only Mill Creek Blu-ray I own is "Big Business", but the quality is really good. Much better than you'd expect for a Blu-ray disc that only cost $5 brand new in Target! The downside is that it only contains the movie. No bonus features at all. Not even a trailer. However, since it's pretty obvious to me that Sony has no intentions of releasing Ghostbusters II on Blu-ray themselves, I was thinking that maybe we should petition Mill Creek to license Ghostbusters II from Sony and put it out on Blu-ray. Granted, it would just be the movie, but as long as they keep it in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, a movie-only Blu-ray is better than no Blu-ray at all. Maybe with any luck, Mill Creek will make Ghostbusters II their first "deluxe" offering and get some bonus materials on there, thus letting them charge more for it then their usual stuff. I'd bet they'd be more willing to pay for bonus materials from the cast and crew - like William Forsche's behind the scenes videos - than Sony would. Heck, I'd be happy to give Mill Creek a copy of the GB2 EPK on DVD for free if they want to use it for bonus materials. All I'd want in return is a comp copy of the Blu-ray.
The reason I've given up on Sony ever putting Ghostbusters II out on Blu is that the perfect time for them to do it was back in 2009 when they put GB1 out on Blu. Every home video re-release of GB2 has been done in conjunction with GB1. It's never been released by itself, except for the original home video release back in 1990. Besides that, GB2 is the lesser-loved of the two films, so it only makes sense from a sales perspective to release it at the same time as the better-loved film, that being GB1. That's why I feel that if Sony had any intention of putting GB2 out on Blu, they would have done it already.
I can only think of one way that Sony would still release GB2 on Blu, and that's if they're holding it back as an incentive for fans to re-buy GB1 again in a "GB 1&2 Blu-Ray Double Pack" to be released whenever.
Now with all that said, and with all my cheerleading, I have mixed feelings about Mill Creek. One one hand, they put out complete series sets for a really cheap price and the quality is good. On the other hand, they do things as cheaply as possible, which results in:
1. Very thick standardized DVD packaging - Whether the set contains 1 disc or 20 discs, it will come packaged in a plastic case that's easily 1-inch thick with the discs stored in paper sleeves inside. Their Blu-rays are stored in normal Blu-ray packaging, thankfully.
2. Too much video put onto each disc - While the quality is definitely good, and there aren't any compression artifacts of note, like EastWest's "Double Feature" dollar DVDs (two full-length movies on a single-layer disc!), there's still way too much content being put onto the dual-layer discs. Looking over the TV-on-DVD sets I have of half-hour shows, 8 eps per disc is the standard limit the major studios adhere to. Mill Creek usually does 10 eps per disc. Sometimes 11 eps (see Sabrina The Animated Series), with their Sherlock Holmes (a 1950s B&W series) and One Step Beyond sets getting 13 eps per disc!!!
With EGB, I expect for them to put 10 eps per disc, 4 discs total, with no bonus features. It's very rare that they put bonus features on any of their releases.
3. A higher rate of faulty discs - I have a few discs where the beginnings of several episodes will play badly, and then after that it plays fine. I had one Beverly Hillbillies disc where an ep would not play at all. Mill Creek has great customer service and always sent me out replacements - and MANY free DVDs of other titles - but every single replacement has always had the same problems as the originals.
Also, they will occasionally split a series into Volumes, with no clear release date for the remaining volume(s). This has happened with the animated BKN series "Roswell Conspiracies", which only has half the series in the Vol. 1 release I have. I can only hope that one day Mill Creek puts out Vol. 2 with the remaining episodes. I hope it doesn't happen to "Sabrina The Animated Series" which got its "first half of the series" Vol. 1 release back in February. There's a chance they could put out only the first 20 episodes of EGB and not put out the rest.
Now, with all that said, do you guys think we should e-mail Mill Creek to suggest they get the Extreme Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II licenses from Sony and put the former out in a 40-episode complete series set, and the latter out on Blu-ray? Sure, both releases probably won't have any bonus materials - in regards to EGB, with 10 eps per disc the quality won't be as great as it could be - but I'd settle for a Mill Creek release if it means we'd get the entire EGB series released on DVD and the movie on Blu-ray here in the States. It's not like any other company is interested, including Sony.
Here are the e-mail addresses listed on the Mill Creek site.
* Acquisitions/Domestic Licensing/Foreign Licensing: content@millcreekent.com
* Sales Support: sales@millcreekent.com
* Customer Service/General Inquires/Publicity (for media inquiries only): support@millcreekent.com
I think the first address would be the most appropriate to use.