I basically cherish this idea, too. But there should be some sort of order to the randomness, nevertheless. I can't see much sense in a box set that would collect together 'first films' of (for example) Rohmer, Antonioni, Pasolini and Melville. Though each of the films in question would be worthy additions, they'd probably cater to totally different audiences. What I could well imagine is something along the lines of Kino's "German Expressionism" box, four unrelated films made by different directors but sharing some qualities of mood and cinematographic style. On the other hand, if I only think of those directors already being released in the main line, there'd be room for at least ten more 'old-style' Eclipse sets before they run out of suitable material. I'd have no problems with another Eclipse set containing Lubitsch silents, for example, or even something like "Very Early Kurosawa" (though I also want Mizoguchi, Gremillon, Sternberg, Rossellini first).zedz wrote:Eclipse could still handle these if they allow for some randomization of the box concepts, however (e.g. 'First Films', 'Forgotten Treasure Vol 1' - collecting together three pretty much unrelated titles).
Schreck's idea on single Eclipse releases is great, but perhaps even harder to sell to a wider public. If they kept the slim line cases for these, the 'normal' buyer would start to wonder why there are these 'unattractive' and cheap discs among the normal program in the shops. If they put them into standard cases, people would perhaps be disappointed by the lack of extras and booklets. I mean, any cheapo WB disc of classic films is likely to contain at least some trailer or an additional cartoon or something without being much more expensive (if at all).
So, I don't know what would be best for Eclipse to proceed, and perhaps they actually DON'T have any troubles saleswise. As long as they don't duplicate films already existing on their own in classy editions elsewhere, I can't see why anyone would want to abstain from such a set if they are interested in the director in question. I only abstained from the Kurosawa set for the moment for obvious reasons, and this is perhaps the only set that would have sold better if these films were made available individually, apart from the "Scandal" and "Idiot" discs, of course.
