This weekend I was watching A Better Tomorrow (A great flick, by the way), and I noticed that the disc had "Netflix" printed on it. I had rented the disc from Netflix, so that part wasn't all that strange, but imagine picking up a movie at your local Blockbuster and then finding that the disc inside had been manufactured by Blockbuster. It's a little odd, and now I'm intrigued to find out what exactly is the business arrangement that allows for this sort of thing.
Did the distributing company release a special Netflix edition of the movie, where the only distinctive characteristic is the "Netflix" name printed on the surface of the disc? Does Netflix make their own copies and have the labels professionally printed themselves? Inquiring mind want to know!
By the way, A Better Tomorrow is a classic work of Hong Kong action directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun-Fat, Lung Ti and a young Leslie Cheung (who is now sadly deceased). I highly recommend it, and will pick it up for my own collection soon.
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Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
According to this article in Wired Magazine, the discs are specially manufactured by the studios for Netflix. Obviously they don't need the packaging as well. It is the same deal for Columbia House where CDs are specially manufactured separate from the retail version.
2 - Steve Rhodes
Yep, Netflix gets spindles with DVDs on them for many of the movies from studios they have DVDs with.
They also sometimes do get exclusive access to a film for a brief window.
Croupier was one example a couple of years ago and they have a deal with another film coming out soon I forget the name of.
3 - Phillip Winn
This is good info, thanks to both of you. I thought I had been keeping pretty good track of Netflix, but somehow I missed this. I'm still a little surprised that they actually printed the Netflix logo right on the disc, but I don't know why that surprises me, given the business relationship.