Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

Instapundit notes here that a small, rather obscure film is going for the rather unsmall price of $118.94 on Amazon. How can this be?

One possibility, from Wikipedia:

As of May 2006, the DVD of The Last Days of Disco has been out of print for a couple of years (since 2000 or 2001), and is selling for $100 to $270 online.

Ok, but then there's the fact that the first film in the trilogy, Metropolitan (1990) is available from the Criterion Collection for $35.99, and Barcelona (1994), chronologically the third film, is available for $17.99, both in (apparently unlimited) stock. Last Days of Disco (1998) only has 17 copies available. Seems a little strange.

Maybe the producers can help us out. I tried to look up Castle Rock Entertainment, but all I get is a website several years out of date whose links all go to the Pokemon 3 movie. Why not try Wikipedia again?

Bingo:

The worldwide home video and European theatrical rights to all Castle Rock films up to 1994 (with the exception of co-productions with Columbia such as In the Line of Fire and A Few Good Men) are now owned by MGM (having inherited some holdings from Nelson Entertainment), while the remaining rights as well as post-1994 Castle Rock films (except the US rights to The Story of Us and The Last Days of Disco, along with the international rights to The American President, all of which are held by Universal) are now part of WB's library.

Out of all that, I think I see that Universal holds the US rights to The Last Days of Disco. We're not talking about an authentic, signed-by-Elvis copy of Hound Dog. It's a freaking DVD of a not even ten year old movie. I could probably make copies, by myself, on my own computer, one at a time, and sell them for five bucks and still make a profit. You're telling me that a company with the production abilities the Universal has available can't run another printing of this movie that people are apparently willing to pay upwards of a hundred bucks to get their hands on?

To me, this feels like a movie that got lost in the shuffle of multiple ownership changes. The second Wiki link indicates that Warner Brothers may also have some sort of stake in Castle Rock films. I'll drop them both an email and see what develops.

Stay Tuned.

Or not: Hells bells.