I'm purposefully ignoring the first part of your post as I've said all I wanted and needed to say on the matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by davcol  Back on topic these new batches of titles look subpar. Caliber 9 is a great film but there is already a superb Raro bd on the market anyway. |
I don't think anything can be labelled sub-par until it's been viewed and compared etc. As for Caliber 9, I do agree that the Raro BD is very nice, however it is only available as part of the Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection Vol. 1 boxset so I think it would benefit from a stand-alone release - especially an extras laden release with a beautiful transfer as the Arrow team seem to be repeatedly doing of late.
Plus, as with many cult releases, region plays a big factor still in as much as there is still a significant market that only buy domestic titles and will not import. Taking Scream Factory thread on Blu-ray.com as a flip-side example, the amount of people on there who request titles that already have releases over here or in Europe is quite staggering, and that is a 'hardcore' collector community. The average cult film fan will be more likely to pick titles up in store or may not be familiar with the title and blind-buy on faith of reviews or word of mouth, or because the blurb on the back sounds good (with Tarantino being such a fan, films such as this have filtered down through into mainstream film fandom too).
Shameless even quote that the majority of their sales still come from brick and mortar stores... whether this has now decreased or reversed is unknown, but blind buying or casual fandom may still make up a surprisingly high proportion of sales. I think sometimes with us being regular forum visitors we forget that not everyone has the knowledge in respect to what's out there and available like we do.