The institutions that produced and distributed the westerns that we had looked at earlier on were small companies developing these types of films for niche markets including; National Green Pictures (Monte Walsh), First Look Pictures (The Proposition) and Touchscreen Pictures, Beacon, Communications (Open Range).
I looked specifically at the distribution of John Ford’s Stagecoach as I had looked at this earlier when seeing how our work was similar when it comes to breaking the 180° rule. Stagecoach was first released through United Artists, an American film studio originally set up by some of Hollywood’s leading member in 1919. After 7 years the distribution rights ran out and it was left to Walter Wanger, the film’s producer. Since that a variety of independent companies owned it, 20th Century Fox later owned it and produced a remake and now it is owned by the UCLA Film and Television Archive with sales and distribution being handled by Warner Bros. Pictures.
I then looked at the IMDB website at the top 10 western films and noted them down along with their main distributers (as they’ve changed over time) here’s what I found:
1) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) United Artists, MGM home entertainment, Warner home video, Sony home entertainment and 20th Century Fox.
2) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Paramount pictures/home video/entertainment, Chapel Distribution.
3) The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) Warner Bros./Picture/Film, Warner Home Video.
4) Unforgiven (1992) Warner Home Video, Warner Bros. , Argentina Video Home
5) The Wind (1928) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor, MGM/UA Home Entertainment
6) For a Few Dollars More (1965) United Artists, MGM Home Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
7) The Gold Rush (1925) Fox Video, Continental Home Video, Allied Artists, Warner Home Video
8) High Noon (1952) United Artists, Republic Pictures Home Videos, Paramount Home Entertainment
9) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, CBS/Fox, Encore
10) The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment/Film Corporation, Fox Video
The number one western according to the IMDB is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
whose main distributers were large, mainstream, American companies, the top ten are not much different and from looking at this I can see that Western films are more likely to be distributed by large mainstream companies like:
The number one western according to the IMDB is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
whose main distributers were large, mainstream, American companies, the top ten are not much different and from looking at this I can see that Western films are more likely to be distributed by large mainstream companies like:
20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., United Artists, MGM Home Entertainment or Paramount Pictures. As they seem to be among the most popular of the companies for the top ten westerns.This is not what i'd expected i'd thought they would be smaller companies as it is a nieche audience that westrens are aimed at. However the company distributing it would depend on the country it was being distributed in, for example if it were in the UK it may be a British company instead like Allied Artists, similarly if it were in a country like Finland (FS film Oy) or Sweden (Svensk Filmindustri (SF)).
Proficient evaluation.
ReplyDelete