[WARNING: I go off the rails discussing non-FLM films here. Skip if not interested.]
deadman wrote:Maybe they buy data from sites like IMDb to see how many people search for info on a title.
!!! I had never considered that, which seems like a better idea than F*c*book surveys, which are only answered by the bored. I would put you in charge of market research for a film restoration and home media label.
I've never run a movie studio, don't really know all the factors they consider or why highly sought after material sometimes isn't released while unknown stuff from the same studio is.
From your avatar I am guessing you might have heard of an older movie called 'Dawn of the Dead', which received a massive multi-4k release in the U.K. and nothing in the U.S., the land of its origin, in the past 14 years. As if there was not demand. The online-rumored explanation was that the RIGHTS-HOLDER was demanding too much money. Does that mean he gave the Brits a discount because it is a smaller territory, or were they just willing to spend more? The fans who imported this release certainly spent some good cash.
Fans of 'The Abyss' keep crying for a Blu, and its owner will not take the time to oversee and approve any new masters until he finishes doing a series of blue alien sequels that I do not see anyone crying for. (Yet apparently many saw the original...) As if no one else could manage to master his damn film. Again, the rights-holder is holding it up.
As for some FLM-type films that are studio-owned, I suspect it is terror over causing controversy and getting death threats. People are crazy, and I understand why they would not want that. Is a movie really worth it? (A certain Brooke film might NOT get ignored these days.) When Stanley Kubrick received death threats against his family because of 'A Clockwork Orange', he withdrew it from circulation in the one territory he controlled it, which was where he lived. No one in the U.K. could legally acquire it for decades. Brilliant artist that he was, he readily sacrificed his art in favor of his family. I certainly do not fault him for that.
As for the more obscure non-studio films, they languish because they do not have the big money behind them. Someone would have to travel around Europe pounding on the doors of octogenarians and demanding they sign some papers and hand over the film cans they keep in their closets.
Kim Sae-ron was actually in until recently. A lot of times you look into a lead actress and find they've only got a few movies, or just that one, to their credit. Occasionally you find a whole bunch of interesting stuff and high quality versions of everything. Then it doesn't rain, it pours! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the flood. 
(I 'member those days too.)
] films in her 'yute' *!.. 
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