by August » Thu Oct 09, 2003 5:51 am
If Toho offered these titles on-line/mail order, that would prevent the ability to sell the rights to North American distributors, which wouldn't be profitable in the long run.
As for GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND, GODZILLA VS. MEGALON and GODZILLA VS. THE COSMIC MONSTER, these titles -- the versions distributed by Cinema Shares -- have been Public Domain for over twenty years, something Toho doesn't want you to know. That's why they replaced the old Cinema Shares pan & scan prints Sci-Fi used to run with new letterboxed prints, under the original titles (GODZILLA VS. GIGAN, GODZILLA VS. MEGALON and GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA) -- although, GIGAN and MECHAGODZILLA had been previously licensed by New World Video in the late 1980s. BTW, they passed on MEGALON, since dozens of PD prints from shady companies had flooded the market, and continue to do so.
As for KING KONG VS. GODZILLA and KING KONG ESCAPES, these are owned outright (into perpetuity) by Universal Pictures, which doesn't really care about these films, so no letterboxed DVD releases for these are on the immediate horizon.
Peace!
August Ragone
Showa GAMERA Special Features Producer
Blog