Topic on User talk:Astounding Beyond Belief

Hey ABB, it’s been a while. First of all, I hope you’re in good health.

I’m just typing this comment so that you (or anyone else who sees this) could clarify Sony’s current rights on certain Godzilla films. I know that Keith Aiken said that Sony’s rights to GvKG and GvM were up for renewal back in 2019 (and it seems like they just let them lapse) so I’m just doing some checking on the other films.

I checked the SciFi Japan thread cited next to that statement from GvKG and GvM’s pages and from the looks of it: GvMGII, GvSG, GvD, GxM and GMK as well Rebirth of Mothra I & II are up for renewal this year, 2023 (I’m assuming before December 31st). The rest of Sony’s rights appear to elapse in 2025 (though they don’t give specific dates for GxM, Tokyo SOS or Final Wars).

Just wanted to double check and make sure that all this info is accurate.

I haven't heard anything to the contrary about the films up for renewal in 2023/2025. We do need to clarify that Sony hasn't let all their rights to King Ghidorah and Mothra lapse, however, as they're both on Pluto TV via Sony Pictures Television.

Interesting, so it’s more of Sony’s home video and digital rental rights that lapse but they still have some streaming/digital distribution rights?

I don't know all the specifics, but that seems to be the case.

Hey man, I’m back. Just checked Pluto as well as godzilla.com, seems like GvKG and GvM are no longer available on there. GvSG also isn’t available for some reason, odd since the Sony Blu-Ray with GvMGII is still on the Godzilla website. I haven’t checked everywhere right now but, so far, it looks like Sony has finally lost all the rights, if not most, to both of these films. I’m guessing the rest of the Hesiei era is up next.

One holdout I found: Swank Motion Pictures still offers licensing for Godzilla vs. Mothra (but not King Ghidorah) via Columbia for libraries, college campuses, etc.

Wow, one of the last remnants of Sony’s clutches on this film. But of course it gets nearly everything wrong, like using the Classic Media DVD cover of MvG and then claiming it’s a sequel to said film. It’ll probably be gone in a few months, if not weeks.

There's some interesting stuff in there. They've got the first three Millennium films, but not the ones after that. You can show Gorath and The Human Vapor, which haven't been released on video since the VHS era, through MGM, and The Mysterians through Warner Bros.

The Mysterians through Warner Bros. and showings of Gorath and The Human Vapor? We sure that the site is up to date? Last I checked, Criterion have Mysterians while the prints for the US versions of Gorath and THV had deteriorated, the 83 minute runtime for Gorath matches Brenco’s original version of the film, though THV has a runtime of 79 minutes. Even The Last War is listed on there with its Japanese runtime.

I'm not sure about the non Godzilla films you've mentioned but it seems like I've heard a lot about Sony losing the rights to the Heisei Godzilla films as well. It's hard to separate what's factual versus what's just pure speculation. I thought I heard something about the first two Heisei films Return and Biollante (I know Sony never owned the rights to those) but it seemed like somehow Criterion got a hold of them and I think screened them both somewhere. I've also heard that Sony's rights to King Ghidorah and Mothra have expired and thought something was said that Criterion got those as well and the last three Heisei Mechagodzilla, Spacegodzilla and Destoroyah were still with them but an experation date for those was to follow soon as well. This is just stuff I've had to go on from sites such as Godzilla Movie forums.com and again I don't know how much of this is true and how much of it is just speculation.

Anyways, there's had been talks on a Heisei collection. I'd love it if that were true as I really did think the restoration job on Criterion's Show boxset but hated the cardboard coffee table packaging and the supplementary aside from the 1954 original wasn't that great and didn't cover all of the films. None the less it would be nice for once if Criterion or someone else could release a boxset of all seven Heisei films.

Janus/Criterion screened both TROG and Biollante at Alamo Drafthouse cinemas in 2021 as the Janus logo did appear before the very beginning of those films, so it’s likely that they have been in talks with Toho about acquiring the rest of the films. As for Sony, GvKG and GvM’s rights were up for renewal in 2019 and it appears that most of the rights for those films have expired now. As stated before, the rest of the Heisei era, GxM, GMK and the first two Rebirth of Mothra films were up for renewal in 2023 while the rest seem to be renewable in 2025.

A future Heisei and Millennium collection seems likely at this point. Given that the set would probably come out around 2025 Toho have enough time to release their TROG 4K remaster onto disc, which hopefully means that both 4K remasters for TROG and Biollante will be given to Criterion, but if Toho have not made any 4K versions for the rest of the films by that time and then released them on disc in Japan then it’s likely we’ll get the Hi-Vision masters for the rest of the films with some touch ups. It’s possible that we get more supplements this time around as the Heisei set would only have 7 films while a Millennium set would only have 6, unless Criterion merge the Heisei and Millennium series together in the same set.

I just hope we get all English dubs this time around, I hated how some of the films on the Showa set didn’t get their dubs, especially since the Criterion set is the only legal way to watch these films in the UK right now. Would really like to hear what that unreleased G2K Omni dub sounds like, hell I’d even like to get the “pre-repairs” dub of GvMGII. I hope they could potentially get the rights to G85 but that’s a whole legal mess, they’d probably get a higher chance of getting the US cuts of the Showa films, but then again the last time we heard about legal issues with G85 were around the Kraken release and a lot can change in just a few years.