If I count correctly, there will be no less than half a dozen Best Buy exclusives in tomorrow's DVD offerings.

Previously announced double bills:
Chamber of Horrors & Brides of Fu Manchu
It & The Shuttered Room

A NASA documentary, multi-disc, called When We Left the Earth

A TV-movie, Marvel comic based, Nick Fury - Agent of SHIELD, starring David Hasselhoff

Raw Feed Horror Collection, a trio of direct-to-video Warner horror flicks

and finally a variant on the big event of the week, an Iron Man package with an exclusive bust (though apparently the bust has found one or two other markets)

Does this indicate a trend? Does it make any sense? Wouldn't it be better if Best Buy put some more high-quality 20th Century movies on the shelves as opposed to Blue-Ray 21st Century crap? (Well, I can't aim that against the double features, which are all pre-2000. But this is a general trend as brick and mortar DVD outlets pass by more and  more solid 20th Century titles being released. If the trend continues, will pre-2000 material continue to be released at all?)

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
Could be< karl. They also have an exclusive package coming for Star Wars: Clone Wars (Steelbook). There are a LOT of exclusive Iron man packages, it almost seems as though every Retailer got one, there's a Target exclusive, a CC exclusive and even a Wal-Mart exclusive. <shrugs> All it does it give me nightmares.

I'm sometimes a sucker for these things, but I also try to remember that the little shing disc (or discs) is the important thing. I think the folks who, for example, go for those (recent non-exclusive) <i>Nightmare Before Christmas</i> doll packages are crazy. But then, aren't we all....

The temptation is stronger when I'm offered a bonus disc of some sort, which used to be a frequent Best Buy strategy on TV season sets, but I don't see this so much anymore.

I think collectibility could ultimately calm DVD. Just like the Comics boom of the early ninties, people are speculating on DVD's value. Recently,  because it had a limited print run, or shiny cover, I have seen alot of people on a forum I frequent asking how much thier DVD is worth. My response is always What is the value to you? Are you one who puts the movie first? Extras like deleted/alternate scenes, Making of docs, etc. Did you get perceived value? While I am not againsist di$ney or Luca$ for thier vaulting of important catalogue titles, Nobody is forcing people to go out and buy every exclusive. What will end up happenning is....I think just like the comics boom the industry will eat itself out of itself.  Sales will continue to go down, as re-release upon re-release is made available, Ultimate steel leather loin cloth versions from six different stores will no longer be found as people will realize that buying six  versions of the same thing isn't as good as getting six individual things. Most of us here want quality over quantity. It sucks that some moveis pre 2001 aren't getting Blu-ray releases, but come to DVD for the first time, or re-released for the upmteenth time. Call me what you want, I'm just a movie lover who wants to see as many new things as possible with the best technical advances money can buy.

As with comics, value often depends on rarity. Yet if a movie is good, it seems likely that if you keep waiting for it, it will eventually be available in a legit edition at a normal retail price. Fortunately we don't have the VHS tape phenomenon of the Priced-to-Rent tape: generally anyone can buy a movie he really wants if it's on the retail market.

I know the "alternate ending" edition of Little Shop of Horrors is a rarity. Probably the European Cut version of Swamp Thing is worth something since its release was unintentional and now off the market. There are DVDs which for some reason have gone out of print, or our of press, or however you want to call it: Farewell My Lovely (Robert Mitchum -- this was available only in pan&scan), Rawhead Rex (Clive Barker story), Voyage of the Damned.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
I don't go for premiums myself. Most of them cause too many problems storage-wise, I look for content. And no DigitalmCopies do not qualify as content...ho hum. 

Skip

Depends. I guess my favorite premium was the three little busts of the classic Universal monster trio provided along with the movies years ago. (That was Frankenstein's creation, Wolfman, and Dracula; they never did this for Mummy, Invisible Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon, maybe because the first two were similar wrapped-up guys.) I looked at the Iron Man bust and decided that it wasn't worth the extra expense. I admit I picked up the Best Buy free "lithograph" though to my taste it's a piece of crap.

Don't forget this major difference when comparing dvds to comics.

A first edition comic will always be more sought after, no matter how many print runs it goes through and how shiny and full of extras the newer versions might be.
When a better dvd version comes out, the first version drops into worthlessness nearly instantly. I have a couple of rare dvds that some might pay big bucks for, as long as they don't get re-released.