U.S. MELODY status

For the curious, here's where things stand regarding MELODY.

MGM holds the chain of title on the movie from their acquisition of the Hemdale library years ago. However, since the film was a collaboration between Hemdale, Sagittarius, and David Puttnam's Goodtimes Enterprises, there are some legal ramifications that need to be settled first before they can do anything with it. I don't know what these are specifically - probably getting Puttnam or the producer who ran the now-defunct Sagittarius to sign off on a permission paper that would let MGM expolit it as they please. Paramount, from an ancient Viacom deal, have the TV rights to the movie until 2009, but it doesn't appear to be in any current movie package they are offering to cable or syndication.

The big stumbling block, as I see it, is going to be reclearing all the music for the film. Record companies have been asking for inflated license rates from studios on older DVD titles, and most times studios balk at paying them if they think that the cost of the clearance will be more than what they expect to make in profit from the sale of the title. And in this case, the Bee Gees recordings are owned by Universal Music, who have been notorious for this practice. Paramount's DVDs of GREASE and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER were long delayed while they bickered over prices, and when they were finally released, Paramount deleted any use of Universal-controlled music beyond the films themselves: the FEVER documentary is stripped of Bee Gees music, and features no trailers.

Since I know some fervent MELODY collectors post here, if any of you have friends at these companies, those are the people to bug, beg, plead, and cajole. I can say that elements at MGM are fond of the film and would like to see it out, so that's a good sign. If anything, you may want to hint at any unusual goodies that can be located, like those Hyde and Lester reunions from Japanese TV, those would be great supplements.