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Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

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Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#51

Post by vanderZwan »

> Anyway, Waiting for Guffman still holds up, and you can watch it on YouTube, for free.

On top of that it never was released outside of the US before! As a European fan of Spinal Tap I'm quite excited to finally be able to see this film.

Also: no mention of The Mission, which is also in the list? That's quite a critically acclaimed one. Just look at these opening paragraphs from its wikipedia page:

> The Mission is a 1986 British historical drama film about the experiences of a Jesuit missionary in 18th-century South America.[4] Directed by Roland Joffé and written by Robert Bolt, the film stars Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally, Aidan Quinn, Cherie Lunghi, and Liam Neeson.

> The film premiered in competition at the 39th Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d'Or. At the 59th Academy Awards it was nominated for seven awards including Best Picture and Best Director, winning for Best Cinematography. The film has also been cited as one of the greatest religious films of all time, appearing in the Vatican film list's "Religion" section and being number one on the Church Times' Top 50 Religious Films list.

Oh, and the score is by a certain Ennio Morricone.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IpNXw6Y05M&list=PL7Eup7JXSc...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mission_(1986_film)

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#52

Post by korse »

browningstreet wrote: post #7
timmg wrote: post #2

I assume they get "monetization" from Youtube and they don't need to worry about hosting or discovery. Probably better than doing nothing with these films.

I'm a little surprised there isn't more of this. Building a streaming service is pretty expensive.. a lot of the platforms lost money doing so and really only made it back when they merged into an umbrella of other services. I'm also a little surprised no one has yet (AFAIK) done the "viral indie release to Youtube" path. I feel like it's sitting there waiting to be exploited.

I think you missed a decade or two. This was already a thing and the mainstream didn't exactly have the appetite for it. Check out 'web series' on Wikipedia.

I don't know what you're into but "The Guild" is pretty excellent example of the form.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#53

Post by pwg »

tombert wrote: post #33
boohoo123 wrote: post #10

My guess would be offloading storage space while adding monetization revenue.

Is storage space for this significant? I doubt they're deleting the master copies or the master renders or anything, so the only thing that would be offloaded would be the "consumer" renders. A Blu-ray movie with no additional compression added is between 15-40 gigs. A consumer like me has a 300 terabyte storage array, presumably Warner Bros has even more than that (and certainly could afford more than that), so it f…

The 'offload' might be "building an entire streaming infrastructure".

This way, they get to ride Youtube's streaming system rather than have to build one out.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#54

Post by meinersbur »

tombert wrote: post #20

It would be great if they started putting the canceled and removed cartoons on YouTube as well. Stuff like Final Space, Close Enough, and Infinity Train, which AFAIK has no legal way of watching anymore, could get a new audience on YouTube.

The problem here (and problably the reason why they were removed from paid streaming services) are residuals [1]: Even if nobody watches them, studios still may have to pay actors, directors, writers, etc. a share. I assume the movies put on YouTube don't have any residual agreements.

[1] https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-tv-and-theatrical-residua...

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#55

Post by fullshark »

rwmj wrote: post #42

When Jeremy Irons was asked why he did Dungeons & Dragons (2000), he replied "Are you kidding? I'd just bought a castle, I had to pay for it somehow" ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190374/trivia/ )

Michael Caine's quote about Jaws 4 is similarly great:

"I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#56

Post by georgeecollins »

This is a desperation move. Warner, like many other studios fed Netflix the content to make the service that is destroying them. Then a WB had a disastrous acquisition by ATT-- admittedly made worse by a Trump grudge that held it up for years. Then an acquisition by Discovery, that added very little to WB except bad management. Destroying the HBO brand, DC, etc.

Why is this dumb? They get pennies for their assets today while they bolster the other tech giant that is going to kill them. Studios like WBD don't have the capital or the strategic vision to operate in this environment.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#60

Post by realce »

akovaski wrote: post #35
jerf wrote: post #23

For your searching convenience, they do seem to have all their full movies in a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Y4rNBCLaU&list=PL7Eup7JXSc... That will pop up to The 11th Hour but the playlist has them all.

A link to just the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Eup7JXScZyvRftA2Q5h... From IMDb: The 11th Hour (2007, Documentary, 7.2) The Wind and the Lion (1975, Adventure Epic, 6.8) Mr. Nice Guy (1997, Martial Arts Dark Comedy, 6.2) City Heat (1984, Buddy Cop, 5.5) Michael Collins (1996, Docudrama, 7.1) The Adventures Of Pluto Nash (2002, Space Sci-Fi Comedy, 3.9) Chaos Theory (2007, Comedy Drama Romance,…

> Return Of The Living Dead Part II (1988, Zombie Horror Comedy, 5.7)

My favorite zombie flick, if you've not seen it you need to!

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