![]() ![]() “As regards our old titles nothing should change really. There are already a hell of a lot of excellent labels here.”Īnd how will Criterion’s UK presence affect companies such as Arrow, who have previously assumed the task of licensing for British circulation titles released by Criterion in the US? “A knock-on effect will be more competition for new licensing deals, but there are plenty of films out there,” says Simeoni. How much stimulate the UK market, however, remains to be seen. “I think Criterion’s move to the UK and our own to the US is indicative of the transforming landscape of physical home entertainment distribution,” he said. I asked Francesco Simeoni, Arrow’s head of production and acquisition, for his views on the current climate. Last year, meanwhile, Arrow pulled a reverse-Criterion by expanding into the US market. In the UK, Criterion is entering into a crowded marketplace, with labels such as BFI, Second Run, Eureka Entertainment and Arrow Films all publishing specialist home entertainment for film-literate audiences. Last year, for example, consumers in Britain purchased £514.5m worth of physical music, with vinyl and CD jointly claiming 49% of all money spent on recorded tracks and albums. Moreover, despite the acceleration of the online space as a form of distribution and a platform for consumption – a market into which Criterion has also entered – there remains a healthy appetite for physical, tangible entertainment products. Turell also credits the company’s “solid, symbiotic relationship” with Sony, who assumed control of Criterion’s US distribution back in 2013, as a reason for further expansion. “We always did have a PAL/NTSC barrier, but that disappeared with the advent of HD and Blu-ray.” Given the company’s international cachet, why has the move taken so long? “We’ve thought about it for many years because clearly we didn’t have a language barrier,” company CEO Jonathan Turell told me. (1982) Photograph: Allstar/Columbia/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, a film about an actor who dresses as a woman to land a new role. ![]()
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