Regional and Gepgraphical Variations

[Xenole]

Noticing the number of threads regarding foreign versions of moveies, why is it that so many versions of the same film exist?
eg
R1 DTS, 1 hour extras, 2 bonus commentry tracks
R2 (UK) Squat
R2 (France) as USA, but extra 1/2 of extras + 10 languages
R2 (Germany) as usa but 1 commentry. track and 3 hours of extras

Examples being Fifth Element, Evil Dead films, Almost Famous....etc

Why can't they just stick to the same sort of thing? It's annoying finding you've got a great picture and a few extras when a slightly different version is released elsewhere with more of one thing and maybe less of another.

[Chris]

Originally posted by Xenole
Noticing the number of threads regarding foreign versions of moveies, why is it that so many versions of the same film exist?
eg
R1 DTS, 1 hour extras, 2 bonus commentry tracks
R2 (UK) Squat
R2 (France) as USA, but extra 1/2 of extras + 10 languages
R2 (Germany) as usa but 1 commentry. track and 3 hours of extras

Examples being Fifth Element, Evil Dead films, Almost Famous....etc

Why can't they just stick to the same sort of thing? It's annoying finding you've got a great picture and a few extras when a slightly different version is released elsewhere with more of one thing and maybe less of another.

Different Rights Owners.
SE Reissues
Some companies can't be bothered releasing decent versions, other companies are dedicated to featurepacking discs.
Many companies refuse to license extras to rivals.
etc.

Fifth Element has different rights owners over the world, in the US it's Columbia Tristar who obey Bessons request for no extras and in return they get the best quality masters, in France Pathe own the rights, they put some features on but get the poorer master because of this, in Germany BMG own the rights, they did a SE, in the UK Pathe own the rights but they can't be bothered to release the SE (they prefer releasing SE in France)

Evil Dead Films. Suffers from different rights owners, in the US Anchor Bay now own the rights to all 3 and have released SE. UK had rubbish releases due to the rights being owned by budget companies, AB now own the rights but have done a standards conversion of their US version and extras have been lost due to copyright.

Almost Famous had a standard release, but the SE was announced at the same time, this was because the studio wanted a quick release and so the discs produced didn't have enough time to release it as a SE first time.