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September 29, 2005
Someday my prints will come: distrib on costs of Masculin Feminin
Upon the Criterion Collection release of Masculin-Feminin, here's a patch from a Gothamist interview with Bruce Goldstein, partner in distrib Rialto Pictures and repertory director of New York's indispensable Film Forum. Rialto distributed M/F and Goldstein says, "These prints are very expensive. The prints in a movie theater, like a Loews Cineplex—for example a film like Million Dollar Baby... they're probably no more than $1500 a print because they mass produce them. They make something like 3000, and the prints are fairly cheap. The print of Masculin Feminin, I don't mind telling you, is $6000. For a small company, that's a huge investment. And if you make five prints that's $30,000. If you make 10 it's $60,000. Even these new studio restorations, they are not mass-produced. They make one or two. A big studio like Warner Bros. or Sony, they may make like five. The audience is still fairly niche-y. Although now all the studios have arms that deal with classic films, and that's a great thing." Of what movies he watches, Goldstein notes, "I watch more movies that I program than I ever did before because my memory of films is fading. And it's always great to watch movies you haven't seen in a long time -- to see them again with a fresh more sophisticated eye. I do try to watch a lot of old films that I'm programming, but even more than that, I prescreen prints for quality. We send things back all the time."
Posted by pride at September 29, 2005 02:20 PM
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