Arrow Video has announced that they will be expanding into North America. For full details on announcement and how you can support their expansion and get great stuff in exchange check Here.
With this news I began to wonder if this affects
Scream Factory at all. I often see the two companies pitted against each other as competition, but it didn't really seem like a real competition to me because they worked in to different markets. That will be changing now so I wondered if that would affect Scream Factory and their production. From all the information that I have been able to gather, I
would say the affect of Arrow Video’s expansion on Scream Factory should be
relatively small. The affect should be relatively small for a couple different
reasons, there choice of releases vary enough from each other that they won’t
always be trying to release the same films and Scream Factory already has a
rather large foothold in the American market.
For the most part Scream Factory releases North American
cult horror and sci-fi films from the 1980s. While Arrow video does release
some of those types of film they also release a lot of other types of films
like, action movies, comedies, foreign films, and more. As you can see Scream
Factory has a very specific niche that Arrow Video doesn’t primarily focus on.
As a result Arrow Video’s expansion into the U.S. should have too great of an
affect on Scream Factory in terms of competition on similar types of films. The
two companies won’t always be going after the same titles. Even in the case
that they two do try to go after the same film, no matter who releases it the
fans will get a quality product.
One reason why I am not worried about Arrow’s expansion is that Scream Factory already has a strong foothold in
the North American market. The have been around for a few years now and each year
they have increased they exposure greatly. They are at a point where most fans
of horror on Blu-ray are at least aware of or own a release of a Scream Factory
Blu-ray. Arrow video is not as well known to the common horror Blu-ray
fan in the North America. Also a large number of fans are not region free. One of the reasons it
seems for why Arrow is wishing to expand in the first place. So having already
established themselves combined with not always releasing the same kinds of
films, Scream Factory fans should not have to worry about Arrow Video taking
over any time soon. Rather fans should look forward to another great company releasing cool
titles and supporting their growth.
Overall I see Arrow Video’s expansion into North America as a
positive development for fans of cult films. It is a good thing for fans
because there are a lot of films that people want released and haven’t been
released yet. As well, there are many films waiting to be discovered by a wider
range of fans. Another Blu-ray label that releases these types of films is a
good thing. It brings about a healthy competition and an expansion cult titles
being released.
Arrow Video puts out a lot of quality releases in terms of
packaging, presentation, and special features. With their expansion into North America one can hope that they be able to push other companies to improve their
products due to their competition. I am not saying that Arrow Video releases
are perfect; rather that there presence will hopefully lead to improvements to
both Arrow releases and other releases from different companies like Scream
Factory.
The best part of this whole piece of news is that more cult
films will be coming to Blu-ray with great releases. As I have stated earlier,
Scream Factory and Arrow Video won’t be looking to release the same titles all
the time. As well, Arrow video release a lot of different kinds of films than
Scream Factory does and vice versa. Think about it, potentially 8-10 great
films released in a month between the two companies. A scary though for the
wallet, but a great thought for the fans!
In the end I am not worried and Scream Factory fans should not be worried either because
there are definitely enough great films to put out on Blu-ray between all of
the different companies. This is only a benefit for fans, as they will now have
even more access to more great films.
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