I figured the best way was to copy and paste from wiki:
In 1986, Charles Benton founded Home Vision Entertainment (HVE), the home-video division of Public Media Inc. (PMI), which he founded in 1968. The HVE company sold, advertised, marketed, and distributed Criterion Collection DVDs, and sold its own HVE-brand of DVDs (co-produced with Criterion), including The Merchant Ivory Collection,7 and the Classic Collection, a joint venture between Home Vision Entertainment and Janus Films. The latter enterprise published HVE imprint films, for which Janus Films owned the video rights, unavailable from the Criterion Collection; however, Criterion published Classic Collection fims. In 2005, Image Entertainment bought HVE, thus it became the exclusive distributor of Criterion Collection products.
So…blu-ray of Time Bandits and Long Good Friday perhaps?
I’d also look out for the remaining in print Studio Canal titles, like Le Cercle Rouge, Last Year at Marienbad, and Army of Shadows.
Isn’t Army of Shadows coming soon to Criterion Blu-Ray in January though?
Criterion blu rays were announced for Contempt and Ran if I’m not mistaken, but they had their rights to the films revoked before the BD releases, so you never know.
Boo! That is lame.
The Time Bandits, Withnail and I, Long Good Friday, and Mona Lisa Blu-rays were released in August by Image Entertainment. The DVDs that are coming out next February are the same releases, just in standard definition, meaning they are all fairly barebones releases.
Handmade Films is the company that produced all of those titles, and Image is distributing. I doubt the Criterion releases will go out of print, but I don’t think Criterion has the option to release Blu-rays themselves.
Max Renn
Today I noticed that Time Bandits, Withnail and I, Mona Lisa, and The Long Good Friday are going to be released by Image Entertainment next February. Does this mean these titles are going out of print? Any insights?